From Through a Different Lense
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Sort of AU, NOT A LOVE STORY in the strictest sense... An old friend appears at 221 Baker Street... Can old and new coexist? Will John learn things he never expected about everyone's favorite detective? SH/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So, this is my first non-Harry Potter fic. It will probably be my last. It is obviously my only Sherlock fic, and I have a word of warning: I am not very familiar with the Sherlock Holmes universe, as I have never read any of the books or watched any other adaptations other than the BBC show. I also am beginning this story without having seen the last two episodes of season two. This is very AU. It's not meant to fit in perfectly with any of the episodes in particular or anything like that. It's not a rewrite of a familiar story. It's sort of an offshoot of a dream I had. Please be kind. It's a bit of a half-baked idea. I'll do my best to do the fandom justice!**

**-J**

John was tired. It had been a long day, and Sherlock had been in the morgue most of the day. If John didn't know Sherlock, he would say he was visiting Molly an awful lot, but he knew that they were simply dealing with a particularly large volume of bodies lately. It wasn't that John wasn't disturbed by the fact that crime seemed to have risen so much; it's that he had come to appreciate Sherlock's view that being bothered by things didn't help anyone.

But as John arrived at Baker Street something felt off. Sherlock wasn't home yet, but there was someone where they shouldn't be…

"Mrs. Hudson?"

There was no answer, which made John even more worried. He rushed upstairs to 221B, and he saw a delicate arm draped over the edge of the armchair, the fingernails painted bright yellow. It certainly wasn't Mrs. Hudson.

"Can I help you?" John said slowly, hand on his gun. He'd been with Sherlock long enough to know that the women could be just as dangerous as the men. The figure stood gracefully, turning to face John with a neutral expression.

The first thing he noticed was the very familiar, if petite, silhouette. It was like looking at a young, female version of Sherlock. Not in looks, exactly. She had dark red hair, bright green eyes, and her features were completely different. Still, she wore all black from head to toe, and had a long coat similar to the one Sherlock wore.

"You must be John," she said, her voice not particularly low or high, and obviously attempting to keep as even and dry as Sherlock's tone, but with an underlying tone of excitement she was trying very hard to contain. "I suppose Sherlock won't be in for quite a while."

It wasn't a question. She spoke with confidence, very similar to the air with which Sherlock and Mycroft spoke. He nodded.

"I thought as much," she said lazily. "I have some things I need to take care of. Would you be so kind as to inform him when next you see him that Elizabeth Coppens will be renting 221C? I had wanted to see his face, but one can't have everything in life."

She pulled her coat more tightly around her and her slightly curly hair bounced around her shoulders as she made to move past him, but he couldn't help himself.

"Sorry, who are you?" he asked, the fact that she would be living in their apartment sinking in. She paused, turned, and smiled softly at him.

"Why don't you ask one of the Holmes brothers?"

And with that, she was gone.

John frowned slightly, shook his head a little, and went on about his day. Elizabeth Coppens… the name didn't ring any bells, but Sherlock and Mycroft didn't talk much about their life outside of the world he lived in. He ran over her appearance in his mind, and he realized that she really did behave a fair amount like Sherlock. Was it possible that they had a sister? She wasn't a Holmes… but she could be married? Or perhaps she was a cousin.

"Sherlock, are you in?"

"Mrs. Hudson?" John called. She appeared around the corner with a sandwich. "Sherlock's not here," he said. "He probably won't be back until quite late. There were several cases Lestrade wanted him to consult on and there was apparently a very large volume of bodies. Did you need something?"

She put down the sandwich in front of him and shook her head slightly.

"No, not anything in particular. There's a young woman who's going to be renting the other room. She seemed to know him, you know, Sherlock. I thought he might want to know she was here, but I suppose he'll find out soon enough."

"Yes, I met her," John said slowly, picking up the turkey sandwich. "I suppose she told you who she is?"

"No, not a thing, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, scurrying around, tidying up things here and there. "She was a pretty girl, I'll say that. No, she gave me her name, paid in cash, and seemed quite a nice sort of girl. I didn't think there was much to ask. She paid in cash, you know."

Yes, paying in cash was often the best way to keep people from asking questions. John thanked Mrs. Hudson for the sandwich, and she made him a quick cup of tea. He puzzled a little while longer about the girl… Elizabeth Coppens…. But there were no conclusions that seemed to come to mind, so John turned to his blog for a while, covering some of their more recent cases and wondering about the girl. When Mrs. Hudson came around a while later to collect his cup, he said, "Mrs. Hudson, I thought 221C wasn't in very good shape? Miss Coppens wanted to rent it why?"

"Oh, she said she wanted to fix it up herself, dear," Mrs. Hudson said. "I told her as long as it wasn't anything too drastic or permanent, she could do whatever she pleased. Maybe it'll be easier to rent next time around."

She paid cash for the flat and she even was putting out her own time and money to make it a decent place to live. She wanted to stay there very badly…

Sherlock came back late that night and settled down in an armchair, the same armchair the girl had been in earlier that day. As soon as he sat, he froze, stiffened, and inhaled slightly. John watched him, wondering if Sherlock would be able to figure out about the girl without being told.

"Someone was here," Sherlock said slowly, looking around. "They didn't touch anything. Female, probably a bit younger than us, wearing a hat or a coat which covered her head somehow… Did you happen to see her?"

"Yes, I did, actually," John said casually.

"Here for a case?"

"No, she's renting 221C," John remarked, looking up at Sherlock's mildly surprised face. He savored that expression for a moment. Sherlock surprised wasn't something which happened very often, and when it did John was always sure to make at least a mental note of it. "She said you would know her, and she was waiting for you, actually, but she said she had some things to do and asked me to tell you she was here."

"And?" Sherlock prompted shortly. "Who was she?"

"Elizabeth Coppens."

To John's surprise, Sherlock, who had begun pacing rapidly, fiddling with his phone, actually froze on the spot, dropped the phone, and stood like that for a moment, stiff as a statue as if trying to decide if what he had heard was actually what had been said.

"Ella? Are you quite sure?"

"She called herself Elizabeth Coppens, yes, that I'm sure of."

Sherlock spun around, eyes wild.

"Petite, probably about five feet, two and three quarter inches, somewhere between one hundred fifteen and one hundred twenty pounds, dark red, curly hair, straight teeth with slightly sharper than normal canines, bright green eyes with a small brown rim around the pupils and rather fuller, darker lips than the average female without any lipstick whatsoever?"

John blinked.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, I suppose that's her exactly."

"That's impossible," Sherlock said, pacing rapidly once more, not even bothering to pick up his phone, which was still lying on the ground. "She can't have found me. I was very careful. Unless…"

He froze again, picking up the phone and rapidly typing away on it, clearly either looking something up or texting. John was guessing it was the latter.

"I'm sorry," John sighed, "but who is she?"

"She's someone I didn't want to find me," Sherlock said sharply. "And apparently she somehow did."

"Criminal?"

"Hardly."

"Family?"

"Not in the slightest."

"She said Mycroft would know her as well."

"Of course he would, the meddling swine."

"Right."

John really wasn't sure what to make of the girl, especially knowing that she wasn't family. Any other man and John would have thought she was a lover, the way Sherlock so readily and thoroughly described her, but this was Sherlock Holmes. He didn't believe in the usefulness of love, or even sex.

"I see you've found out that Elizabeth's back in town," said a voice from the door. Mycroft. Sherlock whirled around and glared at his brother.

"You told her where to find me."

"I gave hints and suggestions. She's a very clever girl, Sherlock," Mycroft said casually. "She figures things out nearly as well as you, but she hardly was given enough to find you, even by me."

"She was taught by the best," Sherlock said his left eyebrow quirking upward ever-so-slightly. "I think you underestimated her, as you always did."

"And you always overestimated her," Mycroft drawled. "But that is neither here nor there. She's here now. What are you planning to do about it?"

"What, no advice for me this time?" Sherlock snapped with a surprising amount of venom in his voice. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me how to live my life again, tell me how I should treat her, what she needs, what she deserves. She's not a child, Mycroft; she's a woman, and a very capable one at that. You know, and knew, perfectly well that if she ever wanted such things, needed such things, she would have and could have asked herself."

"Could have, yes," Mycroft conceded. "But you know perfectly well that she would never have asked. She idolized you. I believe she still does."

"It's been years," Sherlock said dismissively.

"You hold her to your standards for yourself," Mycroft said. "She's not you. She might wish to be, she might try to be, but she is not you." He paused, letting his words settle over the room before nodding to John, and turning and walking away.

There was a stiff silence in 221B for what felt to John like a very, very long time. Finally, he said, "But who is she?"

Sherlock shook his head, sank into the armchair, inhaled deeply, and stood back up, pacing once more.

"An old friend," he said sharply, which made John even more confused.

Sherlock didn't have friends. Sherlock hardly ever even used the word to describe other people. This girl, whoever she was, must be incredibly special, incredibly important, to merit such high praise from Sherlock Holmes.

John blogged for three hours while Sherlock paced 221B frantically, occasionally pausing to say something completely undecipherable before commencing his silent, urgent pattern that he was walking into the floor. Mrs. Hudson brought them dinner, but Sherlock didn't touch a bite of it. It wasn't until nearly eleven at night when the door to the street opened and the sound of less-familiar footsteps made their way up the stairs that John turned around, Sherlock froze in his pacing, and they both watched the door to 221B expectantly, knowing that the figure about to walk through the door was the small frame of Elizabeth Coppens, the mysterious "friend" of Sherlock Holmes and the renter of 221C.

Sure enough, it was her, dark coat drawn around her tightly and slightly damp. It must have been wet outside at some point while she was out. John had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed the weather, despite having been facing the window as he blogged.

"Ella," Sherlock said in a slightly shaken sort of voice that John couldn't recall having ever heard. "Ella."

"Sherlock," she said coolly, with excitement clearly bubbling just beneath the surface. She held her hard exterior for what felt quite long, but was probably only a matter of seconds before dashing across the distance between the pair of them and wrapping her delicate arms tightly around Sherlock's torso. To John's surprise, Sherlock vigorously returned the hug, pulling her even more tightly against him, his long arms engulfing her tiny little frame in a way that would have been threatening if it hadn't been so obviously tender. John had only seen him this way with Mrs. Hudson, and not even so obviously.

"You left," she said through tears as she pulled away from the hug finally. "You just left, no note, no explanation, nothing. I thought you'd come back. I thought you'd gone off to take care of things and just forgot to tell me, but you never came. I waited for months, Sherlock. I asked Mycroft, but he was always hesitant to tell me much of anything. He thought it was a nice little game, giving me little pieces of information, but never the whole picture."

"I had to go," Sherlock said simply.

"No you didn't," she snapped at him furiously. "You know that's a lie."

"It's not, Ella," he sighed. "I had to go. And I wish you hadn't found me. I didn't want you to find me. Things had gotten out of hand, and you know it."

"So that's just your answer for things now?" she hissed. "Things get a little bit uncomfortable so you run away and try to start over, leaving behind everything? You just find a new flatmate and move to a different part of London and continue on like nothing ever happened and the life you'd been living was just a very pleasant sort of dream you once had? It may have been a nice little thing for you, Sherlock, but to me it was everything! You were my life!"

Now John was starting to get very uncomfortable, feeling very much like he was interrupting a pair of lovers as they talked about a rather painful sort of break-up.

"That's precisely the problem, Ella, I was your life," Sherlock said softly. "I shouldn't have been. You needed more in your life than me, and you weren't going to seek out the things you needed if I was always right there. You couldn't just stay with me forever."

"Why not?" She said desperately. "I wanted to! I would have! Even Mycroft–"

"Mycroft was using you like the horrid snake that he is!" Sherlock roared. "He wanted me to live a normal life, to be answerable to the sort of powers he devotes his life to, but I refused! He thought by tying me to you, he'd accomplish his goal, but don't you realize that he was willing to sacrifice your life, your happiness to make me fit his ideas of what I should have been?"

"You think I don't know that?" she said softly, green eyes flashing. John had dated enough women to know that such a look was incredibly dangerous. "You think I wouldn't have let him use me if it wasn't what I wanted? I was, after all, taught by the best."

"Ella, please," Sherlock said, his voice desperate and broken-sounding. John could hardly believe his ears. He certainly wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't heard it himself. "My life is so much more dangerous than it was, and I can't just calm it down because you want to be here. I don't want you getting hurt. I don't want anything to happen to you. Please, Ella, I don't want you to stay here. Mycroft can find you a nice place in a better neighborhood, help you set up a new life. He'd probably get you a lovely boyfriend if I asked him to–"

"No," Elizabeth snapped. "I'm not leaving. I don't care how dangerous it's gotten. You know nothing of the things I've done since you left. I'll be fine. I'm not letting Mycroft dictate my life any more than you, and I'm certainly not leaving you. It's going to take a whole lot more than your previous efforts to get rid of me, Sherlock. You should have known better. I'm not leaving. And I'm certainly not letting Mycroft get his sticky fingers into my love life. He'd probably set me up with someone horrible, like a government official or even royalty, god forbid."

Sherlock smirked slightly at this and muttered, "God forbid, indeed."

John frowned a little. Clearly, this girl had been someone Sherlock and Mycroft had known a very long time. Sherlock had left, without warning, because…. Because he wanted to protect her? Mycroft had done something, some sort of pressure… but what exactly had happened, John couldn't be sure of. Certainly, Mycroft seemed to both want the pair together and to keep them apart, likely depending on what suited him and his purposes at the time. Mycroft could be like that. But something about how she had mentioned the "things" she'd been up to since Sherlock left made John want to shiver, and he didn't know why.

"Sorry," she said, turning to John. "I know we haven't been properly introduced." She held out her hand and he shook it. "Elizabeth Coppens. My friends call me Ella."

"Only I call you Ella," Sherlock corrected lazily as he strolled into the kitchen. A smile played at her full, dark lips.

"That's what I said," she quipped cheekily. John could hear Sherlock pause a moment before rummaging around in the refrigerator.

"John Watson," John said, and she nodded.

"Yes, I know," she said. "I read your blog sometimes. The writing is quite good, you know."

Suddenly, he realized what was so familiar about her name. Coppens, as in the famous novelists by the name of Coppens.

"Are you–?"

"Her parents," Sherlock said, sticking a cup of tea in front of Elizabeth, which she eyed warily before sniffing and sipping. "Ella has no need for a profession. She was left enough money to keep her well off for several lifetimes."

John was impressed, and was about to express this when Elizabeth sighed, set the tea down, having already finished the whole cup, and said, "You still make it perfectly. It's rather late, boys, I think I'll be heading off to bed. Let me know if you need me."

"Of course," Sherlock said, kissing her cheek gently.

"Good night," John said shortly, waiting until she was gone to turn to Sherlock and said, "since when do you make tea?"

A small smile played at Sherlock's lips, but he did not, of course, answer the question.

It had shaped up to be quite a strange day, John thought to himself as he pulled up the covers that night. Perhaps he would wake up tomorrow and it would all be a dream.


	2. Meet Ella

She curled up on the cold bed and reflected over the day. It felt good to be close to him again, to know where he was, what he was doing, that he was safe. When he had embraced her it felt as it always had, warm and close and affectionate. It had been a long, hard path to finding him, but it had been worth everything she had had to do to get to 221 Baker Street.

In truth, Mycroft had been little help. She certainly used him, if only to make him feel as though he was the source of her information. It was simpler to let Mycroft believe he was the clever one in any situation.

No, the primary source of her guidance had been a demanding one, and she knew Sherlock would have been horrified to know the things she had done in order to find him. She was horrified, but she had to. She had stayed in that flat for months, staring at the places he used to sit, pace, sleep, and feeling emptier than she could have ever imagined. After so many years, Sherlock not being in her life felt like a part of her was suddenly missing, and she needed it back.

Elizabeth pulled out her phone. No texts. She could have sworn she'd heard it go off.

It wasn't that he texted her so often, but it was always important when he did. He didn't like to be kept waiting, and Elizabeth had always been eager to please, although she would have rather that it was Sherlock she had been at the constant service of.

In truth, she understood how dangerous the man she was indebted to was. Sherlock had taught her well, and she wasn't stupid. The question was, how much would he expect from her now that he had fulfilled his end of the bargain? She was reunited with Sherlock. She had exactly what she had wanted. This would have to mean, of course, that her new master would expect the worst of her now that he had her right where he wanted her, for he never would have helped her had he not wanted her to be right where she wanted to be. Elizabeth shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold.

She checked her phone again. No texts.

Would it be like this for long, Elizabeth constantly checking, looking over her shoulder for the summons she knew would be coming?

Her phone lit up and beeped. A text.

With shaking hands, as always of late, Elizabeth took her phone in her hands and opened the message. She actively attempted to calm her breathing as she did so.

_Sweet dreams. S.H._

With a long, slow exhale, Elizabeth let relief and joy spread through her.

Sherlock was an addiction, just like his nicotine was for him, just as food was for Mycroft. The thrill and comfort of being around him made everything in her life make more sense, made all her bad decisions worthwhile.

The following morning, Elizabeth woke to find a nice breakfast laid out on a table beside her bed. She frowned slightly, sat up, and saw there was a text on her phone.

_Had Mrs. Hudson set this out before I left. If you need me, text me or find Mycroft. Will be with him most of day. S.H._

And then another…

_Good morning. S. H._

She smiled a little at her phone, setting it down carefully before picking up the silverware and setting in on the breakfast. Three minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

"Yes," she said, "come in."

It was John Watson, the army doctor. He looked hesitant, but he entered just the same.

"Sherlock told me you'd be up at exactly this time and to ask if you wanted anything," he said awkwardly.

"I'm fine, thank you," she said with a smile she couldn't contain. "Have you eaten yet?"

He shook his head, obviously hesitating whether to ask the questions weighing on his mind or to turn and leave her to her breakfast.

"Have a seat," she said, gesturing to the foot of her bed. "Have a bit of toast. There's plenty. My appetite's shrunk since he last saw me."

There it was: an opening for his questions. People who were dying to ask things were always thrilled when you handed them opportunities. It appeared John Watson was no different, as he sat down on her bed, took the bit of toast she passed him, and appeared slightly relieved.

"So," he said awkwardly, "you seem to know Sherlock well."

"Yes, I suppose," she said, smiling a little. Sherlock was unknowable, a mystery, a conundrum, but she had certainly puzzled out more of him than almost anyone else alive. To John, who seemed to have been with him a while those two obviously meant the same thing and there was really no need for her to point this out aloud.

"How, exactly, do you know him, if you don't mind my asking?"

Her smile deepened, and she said, "Well, John, you've lived with him for a while now. Let's see if you can't deduce it."

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then began looking her up and down, looking around the room, glancing down at the breakfast on the table in front of them, and sighed, "Well, I've figured that if you two were normal people, you probably would have been in a romantic relationship of sorts, but Sherlock's far from normal, and judging by your similarities to him, you're not normal either."

Elizabeth sighed. She loved when people thought she was just like Sherlock, but she had to admit to herself that it was all of her won effort and design. She was intelligent, yes, and had the basic raw material, but she had since molded herself to be more like him.

"I've known Sherlock for almost as long as I can remember," Elizabeth said, buttering a piece of toast.

"Childhood friends?" John prompted.

"No, not really," Elizabeth said with a shrug. "I don't think we went to the same primary school, even, but we were definitely at the same public school, and then university. Anyway, we were always rather close, sort of from day one. I wish I had some dramatic tale of how we befriended each other, but no such luck. He didn't save me from anything, I didn't assist on anything, we just sort of met in the lounge one day and he decided I wasn't an idiot and we went from there."

John gave an appreciative snort.

"Anyway, after uni we decided we would stick together. Honestly," she said, taking a sip of tea, "I don't think I even imagined my life without him at that point. We got a flat, and we solved his cases together. Honestly, I didn't even bother trying to find my own way to pay the rent, and I don't think he would have taken well to me trying. He needed me. If anything, I kept Anderson off his back, for the most part."

John's knowing look told Elizabeth that he'd met Anderson. She had to admit, Anderson was an odd sort of person.

"But things started to get complicated, I guess, and I think he left to spare me that complication," Elizabeth sighed. "I don't really want to talk about it. I just blame Mycroft. He's really an excellent scapegoat, I think. Truly, if you ever need a scapegoat, I recommend Mycroft wholeheartedly."

"I'll keep it in mind," John muttered, buttering more toast.

"How did you meet him?" Elizabeth asked, truly curious to find out how an army doctor had met up with her Sherlock.

"Ah, old schoolmate of mine knew him, I guess. We were both looking for flatmates, and he sort of put us together."

Elizabeth smiled, wondering what sort of torture Sherlock was inducing on a dead body at the time, but she thought it would probably be rude to ask. Since she hadn't been around Sherlock, she'd been reintegrated into the norms of society, albeit unwillingly. It was so much simpler to see life through the lenses Sherlock used, so much fresher and more logical.

"What did you do after he left?" John asked delicately. "I mean, for a living. If you don't mind me asking."

"Oh, not at all," Elizabeth insisted. "Um, a mix, really. I did some investigative journalism, that was my favorite, but it didn't pay very well. I suppose I did a lot of investigative and inquiry work for a variety of public sectors. Mycroft employed me quite a bit, for the government. I think he felt bad, and I didn't mind his charity. They were always interesting jobs, but always things he knew Sherlock wouldn't have taken on, wouldn't have been interested in." She smiled to herself. "I'm a fair bit easier to please than Sherlock is, if you hadn't guessed."

"Isn't everybody?" John joked.

"I like you," Elizabeth said through her laugh. "Yes, I suppose nearly everyone is easier to please than Sherlock."

Her phone went off. A text.

Her breath caught in her chest as she glanced down at her phone, trying not to show her apprehension as she picked it up, tilted it so John couldn't casually glance at it, and opened the text.

_I know you've found him, Little One. Enjoy your playtime for now. M._

She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself, but John obviously noticed that she was rattled.

"Bad news?" he asked gently.

"Um, not great, but I'll survive," she said, gritting her teeth, hoping that she wasn't lying. "Do you know what Sherlock's up to today?"

"No, just that he's with Mycroft," John said with a shrug. "Did you need something?"

Elizabeth bit her lip. Should she tell John? Should she even tell Sherlock? She knew that eventually it would come out, but she couldn't bare the look of disappointment in those gray eyes. She hated when she disappointed him and had devoted her life to not doing so.

"Oh, I was just wanting to take him out for Chinese," she said with a shrug. "That used to be our thing."

John didn't seem convinced, but Elizabeth had been hoping to catch him. She bit her lip, and texted him.

_Dinner tonight?_

She set her phone down, but before she'd even taken her hand away fully, it went off again.

_I know a good Chinese place. I'll be back by seven. Be ready to go by six. S. H._

Elizabeth couldn't help but chuckle at that. It occurred to her that it might be rude not to invite John, and she struggled with herself for a moment on whether or not to extend a polite invitation and hope he declined.

"Well, I take it you two are having dinner, then?" John said sharply. "That's good. I've got a date tonight. Maybe this time he won't try to tag along and get my date accidentally kidnapped and nearly killed."

Relieved and amused, Elizabeth could certainly see how that could have happened, and while she did want to hear the story, she certainly didn't want to hear it right away.

"I do hope that's only happened once," she said wryly, to point to her interest and brush off the story all at once.

"Thankfully, yes," John said with a little chuckle. "I'm always on my toes for a second go, though. But Sherlock doesn't like to repeat himself, does he? He always manages to find a different case, a different horrible situation, and always gets himself out of it a different, solves it a different way. I suppose it chases off his boredom, for a bit." John paused. "Did he smoke, when you two were living together?"

"Erm, yes," Elizabeth said fondly, with a small, slow nod. "But not around me. He would go outside or use a nicotine patch when he had to. I have asthma, you see. I actually like the residual smell of tobacco very much, but the smoke was killer to my lungs."

Not that she had originally liked the smell, but it had grown on her fast as it came to be associated with Sherlock.

"It helped him think, and focus," Elizabeth sighed. "Thinking is paramount, but he tried to be considerate once I ended up in the hospital a couple of times and the doctor and he got into a shouting match."

That had been a fascinating interaction, and really the beginning of all their problems… the awkwardness… Mycroft's prying, society's judging. Maybe if he had stopped smoking around her sooner, he wouldn't have left. But she was being silly, thinking in what ifs, and she knew it.

"Interesting," John said with a slight frown. "I distinctly recall him saying not long after meeting me that 'breathing is boring', venting about the poor smoking culture in London."

"Yes, well, he did like to complain about it," she said with a small laugh. "But that's Sherlock for you. Anyway, what are you up to today, before your date, I mean?"

John had a few errands he had to run for Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson, and politely invited Elizabeth along. It took Elizabeth a moment to accept, because first she had to assess whether his invitation was a sincere one, for John was the type who always seemed sincere, and then she had to determine whether she actually wanted to go to.

Then she followed John around, eager to see the world through someone else's eyes for a change, after working so hard to see it through Sherlock's eyes, first to keep him around, then to find him once he'd left. John was a refreshing change, so simple and kind and sincere. The most awkward part was the visit to Scotland Yard.

"Elizabeth?" said a familiar voice. She froze, palms sweating. Lestrade.

Slowly, Elizabeth turned around. She put a friendly smile on her face, shaking his hand, hoping John wasn't paying too much attention to the way Lestrade's body angled toward hers, or the dilation of his pupils. Sherlock had figured out that she and the detective inspector were sleeping together within an hour of the actual occurrence, but John wasn't Sherlock. Perhaps it would be possible to have secrets from him, if Sherlock didn't spoil them all.

"I've missed you around here," Lestrade said. "Where have you been?"

Elizabeth frowned.

"Erm, I've been in London, Greg. Why, what did Sherlock tell you?"

"Nothing," Lestrade said, shaking his head incredulously. "He just said you wouldn't be joining. I assumed you'd wised up and moved on from the both of us, or got a real job somewhere with normal people who weren't married and dependent on someone like Sherlock to do their job."

"Right, well," Elizabeth said, forcing the blush away from her cheeks with steady breaths. "None of that's true. Sherlock just left one day. I wasn't sure where he'd gone, to be honest. It's taken me this long to track him down, even with Mycroft dropping the occasional breadcrumb."

"Oh, look, it's the freak's pet!" said the snide voice of Anderson.

"Anderson," Elizabeth said with her smoothest, sweetest voice, like honey dribbled on a Venus Fly Trap. "Tell me; is your wife out of town long?"

Anderson's face screwed up in disgust.

"One of you told her that!"

"No, your–"

"Yes, yes, I get it, I'm sleeping with Sally. Our resident psychopath already pointed out the deodorant tidbit."

Elizabeth blinked, and a slow smirk quirked about the corners of her lips.

"Actually, I was going to point out that you missed a spot shaving and you've still got shave cream on the other side. It's not a spot you can typically see in a mirror, but your wife would have caught it on the way out of the door, therefore she must be out of town or ill. Your socks don't match, so my guess is the former. But thanks for that lovely and unnecessary trip into the recesses of your adulterous personal life, Anderson. You keep me on my toes."

Anderson growled, turned his way, and Elizabeth allowed her triumphant smirk to surface.

"You know, I've always wanted to do that," she sighed to John and Lestrade.

"What, you've not before?" John asked.

"No, I always tried to keep the peace," Elizabeth admitted sheepishly. "But I've always wanted to give him what he deserved. I figured that was safer than slapping him."

"Yes, I'd say so," Lestrade said with a sigh. "Especially considering we're in the middle of Scotland Yard."

"Fair point," Elizabeth teased, realizing as she did so that she was flirting with him again. This was how it always started, teasing and playful banter, and then somehow when his wife went to visit her family, Elizabeth always found herself in his bed somehow. That wasn't going to happen this time.

"We've got to run some errands for Mrs. Hudson," John said, "but I'll be in touch about Sherlock's thoughts on these files as soon as I get them."

"You'll be back?" Lestrade asked Elizabeth, and she shrugged noncommittally.

She was sure she would, but she didn't want him to think it was for him. Everything she was going to do was for Sherlock. Greg Lestrade wasn't going to distract her this time.

Spending the day with John was pleasant, of course, but when that came to an end, Elizabeth found herself dizzily readying herself for her dinner with Sherlock.

Elizabeth, without realizing it, put on the dress she'd worn just a week before he left her, the last time they'd gone out for dinner together: a sleek, black bandage dress that fell just above her knees and managed to be modest but sexy all at once. Over top of that she put on the coat that was the smaller replica of Sherlock's own black coat, put her hair in a quick, elegant bun, and a pair of sleek but practical black flats: heels were a foolish sentiment she had given up in secondary school at the logical insistence of Sherlock Holmes that they were bad for her feet, obnoxious, and that she was a short person who simply needed to face the music. A quick swipe of lipstick (the crimson he'd always liked), a dash of mascara, and her phone went off as soon as she'd grabbed her purse.

_Meet you in 221B in three minutes. S. H._

* * *

**A/N : As I'm not an expert on Sherlockverse, I was UNAWARE that there is some character named Ella... just noticed it JUST NOW in the character list. FORGIVE ME, but I'm not changing her name. I don't know anything about the canon Ella and will NOT write about her, whoever she is, so as far as I'm concerned, MY Ella is the one that matters, and that's it. And only Sherlock is going to call her that, so she's pretty much Elizabeth as far as y'all are concerned. Cheers. ;) Please read, review, and let me know what you're thinking! This is scary new territory for me, so I'd love to hear from Sherlock fans what they think of my venture!**

**-J**


	3. Coming Clean

He was on time, exactly, but he always was where she was concerned. He even gave her a tight sort of smile when he walked in, kissing her gently on the cheek and hugging her warmly.

"I would be right in supposing you had a pleasant day," he said, no question in his voice at all.

"Apparently Anderson and Sally are sleeping together," Elizabeth said with a small smirk.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and smiled even broader.

"She wasn't foolish enough to wear his deodorant again?"

"No, I didn't even see her," Elizabeth said, "and thank heavens for that. No, I was merely pointing out his poor job of shaving and dressing himself, and he thought that was what I was implying. It seems Anderson has grown even more paranoid than I recall him."

"Quite possibly," Sherlock said dismissively. "Chinese?"

"Of course," Elizabeth said with a smile, taking the proffered arm and strolling down the stairs with him.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he called. "Ella and I will be out, and I believe John has a date, so don't bother with dinner!"

Mrs. Hudson called back that she had heard him and the pair of them stepped out into the evening air of London.

Sherlock led her down the street, around a corner, around another corner, through an alley, up another street… Elizabeth quickly lost track of their whereabouts, but she was confident that Sherlock knew exactly where they were and she didn't worry about that. She was too busy focusing on how right it was to be on Sherlock's arm again, strolling the city streets like nothing had changed, like they were still flatmates in the East End, extending their days at university and ignoring the criticisms of the world, splitting the money Mycroft was giving her to "spy" on Sherlock.

The Chinese restaurant was a cozy place, the type you see on movies or television shows where people go for dates: cheap but reasonably classy. For London Chinese food, it really wasn't half bad, and the people who worked there were incredibly nice. That was Elizabeth's favorite part of Chinese food, the incredible hospitality of the experience.

"What have you been up to while you were looking for me?" Sherlock said over his chow mein (Elizabeth didn't even have to bother him about eating).

"Oh, this and that," she said with a shrug. "Lots of investigative work of a variety of sorts. Journalism, for a while."

"Wasn't that your degree?" he asked with a fond sort of smile. "Journalism or communications or some such rubbish?"

"Ah, yes," Elizabeth said with a laugh. She distinctly recalled that Sherlock had told her that she was wasting her intellect on stupid self-serving dribble. She had replied that his whole lifestyle was using his intellect for self-serving purposes, i. e. amusing himself, stroking his own ego, etc. He couldn't argue. "Well, I didn't really have anything else I could do, so I did a variety of things like that, and Mycroft had me handle things he seemed to think you wouldn't be interested in."

"Really?" Sherlock said, looking a tad disappointed in her.

"It paid well," she said with a shrug. "I needed the money, badly. Traditional jobs in the media are dying, you know."

An awkward silence settled between them and her phone went off. There was only one person that could be. Elizabeth didn't meet Sherlock's eyes as she checked her message under the table.

_Ask him why he left. I know you're dying to know. M._

She swallowed sharply, glancing as quickly and inconspicuously around the room as she could, but there was no sign of him. She knew there wouldn't be. Like Mycroft, he liked messing with her head.

"Something important?" Sherlock said sharply.

"Not especially," Elizabeth responded, trying to think of a way to fool Sherlock. Few people could pull it off, and she certainly was the worst at it. He knew her too well.

"From someone I know?"

She pursed her lips, deciding what she could possibly tell him, how to lead him off the truth without lying. He could spot her lies a mile off.

"Yes."

"Someone I approve of?"

She cocked her head to the side.

"Not especially," she said with a little smirk. The smirk would throw him off. He would think it was something she was thinking well of.

And just as she hoped he would, he frowned slightly and his nose wrinkled just a little bit.

"You're not sleeping with Lestrade again, are you?"

Elizabeth just laughed, no response. Sherlock could think she was making poor sexual decisions all he wanted, but some things were better kept a secret, even from him.

"Why did you leave?" she said finally, unable to resist the temptation any longer. "Why did you just leave me like that?"

He looked at her with a blank face for a moment, but she could see a bit of regret in his eyes.

"You know why."

"Because of Mycroft?" she said incredulously. "Because of the people and their stupid talk? Because of Anderson?"

"No," Sherlock said sharply. "No, that's only a bit of it. It was what I was putting you through."

Anger flared up inside of Elizabeth and she want to scream at him, but he didn't appreciate such displays of emotion, so she kept herself as calm as possible, and she asked, "And what were you putting me through, Sherlock?"

"You're not me, Ella," he sighed. "No matter how much you'd like to be, how much you try to be, you're not a cold, single-minded brain. You're a passionate person. I know you are, I've seen you and Lestrade in those little moments when you thought no one was watching. I couldn't subject you to a life with me and no love."

She couldn't hold in her fury at this, despite the fact that she was effectively proving his point.

"But you didn't even ask me!" she cried. "You didn't even give me a chance to make a choice for myself! It's not your decision to make, Sherlock!"

He stared blankly at her for a moment and she tried to figure out what he was thinking… But for once he was absolutely unreadable, even for Sherlock.

"I almost did, you know," he said softly, seemingly unfazed by her outburst, strangely not seeming to care that she had let her emotions overcome her reason. "I actually looked into rings. But then you came home late when I was thinking about asking you what sort of ring you would want, and I realized I couldn't do that to you. You believe in love, and you need emotional companionship that you wouldn't have. You would be subjecting yourself to a loveless marriage with a cruel, unfeeling rational being and it would break you down and ruin you. You may not want to admit it, especially to me, but you need love, Ella. You need love in your life as much as I need a puzzle to solve, and I know that latching onto me is your way of pushing the source of that need out of your mind, but you can't run from your passions forever. It would destroy you, and I can't be the one to do that to you, Ella."

She flinched. He knew it bothered her to bring that up, but he had avoided it long enough and they both knew that not talking about it wasn't doing her any psychological favors, but somehow they had avoided the situation for as long as they'd known each other.

What was worse was that Elizabeth knew he was right: she would have said yes even though they both would have known it would have been the wrong response to a question that should never have been asked.

Mycroft hadn't been the only one. There had been pressure everywhere they turned for her and Sherlock to marry… even Lestrade had made the suggestion, as his wife wasn't comfortable with the amount of time he spent around Elizabeth, who, as she said, "already obvious had no morals". At first, their living arrangement had seemed perfect, but it seemed that the second Mycroft stuck his nose into their business, the rest of the world felt they had a right to do the same and the perfect arrangement deteriorated rapidly thereafter.

"He kept a closer eye on me once I left you," Sherlock said passively, examining his water glass. "I'm not sure if he was more concerned about me, or if he was looking for an opportunity to manipulate me into changing my mind, but he latched onto John rather quickly, and tried to bribe him long before he managed to get you on his payroll."

Elizabeth smirked a little. Mycroft had great ideas, but he didn't often get his hands dirty, so it took him years to realize that Sherlock and Elizabeth had pulled one over on him and were splitting his regular payments for her keeping an eye on him. That was actually when the trouble started, when he found out. Mycroft insisted that she was the only female Sherlock could ever be happy with, whatever that meant, and started pointing out the impropriety of their living situation.

"So now what?" Elizabeth finally sighed. "You have John now. You don't need me. There's not really a place for me in your life anymore. You've gone and done a fabulous job of replacing me," she added bitterly.

She almost gasped with he shook his head and said softly, "There's always a place for you in my life." He continued, louder, "Besides, I've not replaced you at all. You're nothing like John. And you may have noticed that we've got quite a business going here. Having an extra person helping would certainly be a great help, if you're willing to give up your silly journalism and side jobs with Mycroft, that is," he said with a small smirk.

"Naturally," Elizabeth said with a smile. She was more than ready to give up everything for Sherlock, but a feeling stirred in the pit of her stomach. There was one thing she wouldn't be able to quit… But she would find a way. She had to.

"One more thing," she said as they had almost finished dinner. "I called you. I texted you. I even looked up your new number on your website and tried that one. You just ignored me. Why? Why couldn't you at least answer me?"

Some sort of expression flashed in his eyes, but he shook his head a little and said, "I… I thought it would be best if you had a clean break, that maybe you would give up if I didn't give you some sort of hope, but apparently I was wrong. I underestimated your tenacity."

"Funny," she teased, "you used to call me stubborn."

"Semantics," he said with a small curl of the lips upward.

They walked back to 221B Baker Street arm in arm once more, but when they arrived, Lestrade was there, talking to John with a dark expression, the one most of the world saw all the time. Elizabeth couldn't help but picture another expression, one he rarely showed anyone, but one she had once seen quite often. It didn't help that his eyes darted to her arm, which was still interlocked with Sherlock's as they entered. She would have withdrawn her arm, but she knew Sherlock would have been disappointed with her for changing her behavior to suit others, so she fought the impulse.

"Where's the murder?" Sherlock said eagerly.

"The morgue," Lestrade said solemnly.

Elizabeth frowned and asked, "Somebody was murdered at the morgue? Sounds a bit too much like a Poe story for me."

"We don't actually know where they were murdered, but the body was anonymously dropped off in front of the morgue, and left it there to be found. Molly called," Lestrade continued. "She said she thinks it must have been a murder, but can't figure out what happened. He appears to have drowned, but has no sign of having been underwater other than the water in his lungs."

"Any ideas?" John asked.

"Twelve," Sherlock and Elizabeth said at the same time, and then they smiled at each other.

"Ella, John," Sherlock said with an excited air, "off to the morgue we go."

The three of them caught a cab, Elizabeth squeezed between John and Sherlock, and John instantly asked, "So, how does one drown without getting wet?"

"Oh, there are several ways," Elizabeth said slowly. "For one thing, we have to make sure he actually wasn't wet, and not that he didn't simply dry off between dying and being dropped off at the morgue. That's the starting point."

"Is that what you think happened?" John asked.

"No," Sherlock said.

"Maybe," Elizabeth said, frowning. "Just because it's fantastic in appearance, Sherlock, doesn't mean it's what it's been portrayed as. Molly likes having your around the morgue."

"Why?" Sherlock asked.

"Because she's attracted to you."

"You were always saying that."

"And I stand by it," Elizabeth said with a small smile. "Molly's infatuated with you, and even you can't ignore the times she practically invented things to get you to spend more time at the morgue."

John smiled a little at that. Apparently, Molly hadn't changed enough that Elizabeth's depiction of her had become irrelevant, and Elizabeth wasn't sure how she felt like that. Despite the fact that both had known deep down that Sherlock wasn't worth it, Molly and Elizabeth had fought over him like angry tomcats fighting over a female in heat. The thing that almost made Elizabeth feel guilty was that she always won, even though she didn't want him in the ways Molly did. Elizabeth just knew how to get his attention and keep it because she knew him.

In the morgue, it wasn't difficult for any of them to notice that Molly was wearing lipstick and a push-up bra, neither of which had she ever warn until she had met Elizabeth and Sherlock, for Sherlock had coolly and cruelly pointed out several times that the reason Elizabeth had had better luck with men was her naturally full lips and breasts, whereas Molly had to find a way to make hers look bigger superficially if she wanted the same attention. Elizabeth knew there was more to it than that, but Sherlock had never really acknowledged the fact that they weren't fighting over the attention of just any male, but of him.

"Elizabeth?" Molly stammered. "I thought… I thought you were gone."

Elizabeth couldn't help herself. She smirked like the cat that got the cream and said smoothly, "I'm back."

"I can see that," Molly said, anger flaring up behind her eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't send you an announcement of my arrival, Molly," Elizabeth said cruelly. "But I was under the impression that we were here to see a dead body, not to chit chat about my being here."

"Right," Molly said, leading them into the morgue.

John raised his eyebrow at Elizabeth as she took Sherlock's arm as they began to walk, knowing instinctively that she was doing it to bother Molly, but Sherlock either didn't notice this or didn't care, and he actually placed his other hand on her arm affectionately, which neither Elizabeth nor Molly failed to notice, and when the women met eyes Elizabeth smirked ever-so-slightly at the stricken expression on Molly's face.

It was too easy, but Elizabeth never tired of her little game.

The body was lying, as all morgue bodies do, still and stiff, face-up, and would have been staring blankly at the ceiling had someone not closed the eyes. But this body was different from other ones Elizabeth had seen in morgues and on her various travels with Sherlock. This one, she knew.

Sherlock had noticed her stiffen with recognition, but Elizabeth quickly calmed herself, attempting to simulate relief, for she knew Sherlock had known that she had recognized the body, but didn't want him to know that. There would be far too many questions.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I thought it was someone I used to know," she whispered back, "but he only looks the same at first glance."

He seemed satisfied with this answer, and Elizabeth focused again on the man dead before them.

Lucas Karlsen. That was his name. He had befriended Elizabeth at a pub, said he'd read her work in the papers and was very impressed with her deductive skills. He was very interested in police work, in the world of crime that seemed to be all around. She had been able to deduce that he was in his mid-thirties, single, and worked for someone with impeccable taste in suits, but did not himself have such tastes, because he wasn't entirely sure how to hang the pants, as evidenced by the slightly off-the-mark creases.

He had gotten her in contact with the man who had ultimately given her Sherlock's location, but it had been a steep price to pay.

"Office worker," Sherlock said, examining the body beside John, who was looking at it from a medical perspective.

"Appears to have been dry for some time," John said. "Well before the time of death."

"Mid-thirties, single," Sherlock rattled off. "What do you think, Ella?"

Molly visibly cringed at the use of the nickname, but Elizabeth took no pleasure in the little twitch of the desperate woman. She was looking down at the body of the man she had gotten to know so well, wondering what she should do, should say.

"Left-handed," she whispered, going more off her memory than deduction, but only saying things she could see evidence for in the body in front of her. "Dandruff problem, non-smoker, self-conscious–"

"Self-conscious?" Molly asked incredulously.

"Yes," Elizabeth said with a nod. "From his tan lines, the shape his body is in for his age, coupled with the fact that he's single and the stretch marks on his abdomen and thighs one can deduce that he's lost weight, and that he's been very careful about his appearance since. He's single, so he's not doing it for a woman in particular, but rather to get attention. What single man in his thirties with a history of a weight problem do you know of who isn't self-conscious, about their weight and appearance at the very least?"

Sherlock smiled a little.

And then her cell phone went off. A text.

It was all she could do not to let her hands shake visibly as she reached into the pocket of her coat and checked her phone.

_Who do you think will be next, little one? M._


	4. Damn It, Mycroft!

Sherlock couldn't figure out what had happened with the drowned man, and the very fact of that baffled John almost as much as everything else that had been happening lately. Sherlock had been eating more regularly, wearing the nicotine patch instead of trying to smoke, doing little things throughout his day for Elizabeth without her ever asking or hinting, being nicer to everyone, and even making dinner.

For a day or two, John suspected that Sherlock was either on drugs or up to something, but Mycroft, when he came to see them, assured John that it was all Elizabeth.

"She has that effect on him, for whatever reason," Mycroft said, frowning slightly. You would have thought it was a bad thing, the way Mycroft talked about it.

"What do you mean?" John asked.

They were waiting for Sherlock and Elizabeth to get back from a lunch out at some Italian place they used to go to, but not Angelo's.

Mycroft fixed John with a curious look and finally asked, "Have either of them told you about why he left her?"

John shook his head.

"There were many people, myself included, putting a considerable amount of pressure on them to get married, at least for propriety's sake. I knew she would never leave him willingly, and I knew that Sherlock had no plans of making things proper in either of their lives, that he wasn't thinking about what she needed." Mycroft narrowed his eyes and continued, "Sherlock actually told me that he was going to propose, and started looking at rings. The next day, he told me he was moving out, that I was not under any circumstances to tell Elizabeth where he was, and that it was for her own good. I still don't know exactly what made him decide it was the best thing for her, but he was adamant, found you several months later after trying a few different temporary and terrible living situations that lasted about as long as it takes him to solve a really difficult case, and she called me and him every day for a month before she finally gave up trying. I would drop her hints because I knew she was still searching everywhere she could, but nothing I thought would give it away. I couldn't help but feel a bit responsible, and dropping hints kept her from spiraling into depression and turning to… other methods of finding him."

John wasn't sure what 'other methods' meant, but from the way Mycroft said it, he assumed they weren't good.

"Right," he said. Suddenly, his mind strayed to the texts Elizabeth kept getting, texts that she seemed to dread reading, but always opened right away. He wondered if he ought to mention them, and then Elizabeth and Sherlock walked in arm-in-arm, as they usually did, looking particularly jolly.

"Mycroft," Elizabeth said with a bit of a frown. "What are you doing here?"

"Now, now, Elizabeth, dear," Mycroft drawled, "that's no way of greeting, now, is it?"

John nearly laughed as Elizabeth rearranged her face as he'd seen Sherlock do many a time when talking to someone, trying to get information out of them without them realizing. She suddenly looked cheery, surprised, and pleased all at once.

"Oh, Mycroft! How lovely to see you, how have you been? How's the diet?"

Sherlock smirked and John couldn't help but laugh a bit. Even when she was being nice, she was still fully capable of being nasty, and Mycroft's expression didn't change, but the look was disapproving, which was really the expression John had come to attribute to Mycroft.

"Yes, well, amusing as always, Elizabeth," Mycroft continued. "Some information has come to light about your drowning victim." His eyes turned to Elizabeth. "He was an associate of Jim Moriarty."

Elizabeth's face was blank as she met Mycroft's eyes, but then she turned to Sherlock.

"Who?" she asked.

"Moriarty," Sherlock growled. "Consulting criminal, and my arch-enemy."

"What, that's not Mycroft anymore?" Elizabeth said in a nervous but half-teasing voice. "Consulting criminal… so you're saying that the man on the slab was a criminal?"

"Hardly," Mycroft said, still not having taken his eyes from Elizabeth, which John thought was a bit odd but attributed to the fact that she was a returning member to the cast of characters. "He gathered them up, pulling in actual criminals, recruiting new ones… a very valuable member of Moriarty's organization, and it seems rather unlikely that he would kill him on a whim. Either he did something, or he's a message to someone."

"I'm sorry," John said, frowning, "but what makes you think Moriarty killed him?"

"Come, John, isn't it _obvious_?" Sherlock said eagerly. "I certainly didn't do it, and if he works for Moriarty, he has his protection, and no one but myself or Moriarty could have gotten to him."

John sighed. It may have been obvious to everyone else in the room, but it wouldn't have been obvious to the majority of people, and it certainly hadn't been to him. At any rate, the one thing that was obvious to John that Sherlock appeared oblivious of was Mycroft's obvious suspicion of Elizabeth, which certainly could be from her moderately suspicious behavior… but what exactly was the suspicion? And should John really risk calling into question to Sherlock the one person that Sherlock might actually look at as a friend other than himself, and the oldest friend Sherlock had, to the point where he almost proposed to her? He would need something more concrete than his supposition of Mycroft's suspicions.

"And you think that it's the latter, or you wouldn't be here telling me about it," Sherlock said firmly.

"But you would obviously have to wait for another body to know that for sure," Elizabeth said reasonably.

It made sense to John.

"We have two," Mycroft said calmly. "Alexander Jacobsen and Tyler Lund. Found tied together and covered in acid by the train tracks this morning. The identification took some time, but we are quite sure it is them."

Elizabeth stared at Mycroft, not even blinking or breathing. Even Sherlock frowned as he looked between the two of them.

"Do you know of them, Elizabeth?" Mycroft pressed.

"Should I?" Elizabeth countered. "They don't sound familiar."

"Really?" Mycroft said, taking a step forward. "They were a couple of health care frauds that came across your desk at one point. You didn't take the case, for some reason, refused to write about them, but didn't say why. Care to disclose your reasoning now?"

"Mycroft," Sherlock said in a warning tone that John hadn't heard him use in a while.

"I don't remember, Mycroft," Elizabeth said sharply. "It was a while ago. I don't remember every detail of every case that crossed my desk, particularly the ones I didn't follow up on."

"This was a rather large–"

"Mycroft, leave her alone," Sherlock snapped. "If you don't stop prying into her life again, I'm cutting you out of mine!"

John blinked.

Elizabeth blinked.

Mycroft blinked.

But Sherlock's face was livid, and his gray eyes flashed angrily. It just affirmed to John that he shouldn't mention anything about the strange behavior until he had more concrete proof to work with.

"Apologies," Mycroft said, clearly still shocked at such an ultimatum.

"It's fine," Elizabeth muttered, flustered. "Um, where are these acid-covered bodies and when are we going to look at them?"

"I've arranged a car to take you out," Mycroft said simply. With that, he nodded to John and walked out the door.

"Did he mean right now?" John asked. "Mrs. Hudson's making shepherd's pie."

"He meant right now," Elizabeth sighed, putting on a scarf that had been draped over the armchair: Sherlock's scarf, and she put it on exactly how Sherlock always did. Sherlock didn't seem to care, or even notice, and simply offered her his arm once more and looked at John expectantly, who quickly went out before them.

Another pretty girl was sitting with them in the car, texting almost as avidly as "Anthea" had when Mycroft had first hijacked John. Elizabeth, John thought as he looked between the two women in the car, was certainly the better looking of the two, and he thought that it might be because she was looking up, looking around her, rather than closed off, staring at a little screen in front of her face. She seemed more real, more approachable. And yet, he knew in his gut that asking her on a date would be a terrible idea.

They arrived near the train tracks and the car stopped, letting them out. John watched Sherlock and Elizabeth walking to the bodies arm in arm, thinking that Mycroft was right: they did make a pretty couple, and the thought of them together made a lot of sense, more sense than almost anything John had ever contemplated before.

And yet his mind went back to the day he took her to Scotland Yard with him, and the way Lestrade looked at her, the way she looked at Lestrade. Sherlock never looked at anyone like that, and Elizabeth, while she clearly adored and worshiped Sherlock, never looked at him like that. Molly did, but Elizabeth didn't.

No, despite their obvious need for and delight in each other's company, John came to the conclusion that there would be better men by far for Elizabeth to marry.

Sad that Lestrade actually was married, however unhappily.

But all such thoughts were jarred from John's mind as he looked down at the pair of bodies, tied back to back, marred by acid. He bent down, examining them. On first sight, it appeared that there was no other cause of death than the acid itself, and they certainly put up quite a fight against their bonds.

The acid had been minimal, overall, and seemingly applied after the lethal dose, which suggested that someone watched them die, watching their suffering, waiting to give them enough acid to mar their features. There were deep holes on the stomachs and necks, and shallower degradation elsewhere.

"Wow," Elizabeth exhaled, kneeling down beside them.

"Don't touch," Sherlock said sharply, and Elizabeth glared up at him.

"I figured that out when Mycroft said 'acid', thanks."

She shook her head.

"Even if I had known these men," she said softly, turning back to the disfigured bodies beside her, "I don't think I would have known it by this sight. I bet their own mothers wouldn't have been able to identify them."

John had to agree, it was rather gruesome. It didn't, however, seem like Moriarty's type of murder. It was too messy, too base, too time-consuming and labor intensive. And yet, Mycroft was sure that Moriarty was responsible.

Elizabeth's phone went off as she knelt there, and as she checked her text message, her face was schooled into perfect blankness, and John tried to get a look at what was on the screen, to no avail. She hid it too well.

Sherlock, on the other hand, frowned slightly, looking over at Lestrade. Apparently, he expected the text to be from him, although John couldn't see why… unless… Were they sleeping together? Or perhaps, had they slept together? Not Lestrade and Sherlock, obviously, but Lestrade and Elizabeth… given the way they had looked at each other in Scotland Yard, the way Lestrade had spoken to her… it was certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

"Thoughts?" Lestrade asked, noticing that Sherlock was looking at him, obviously not realizing why Sherlock was looking at him.

"Well, aside from the fact that acid was used and that it was Moriarty?" Sherlock said with a sigh. "Not particularly. Although, I must agree with Mycroft, he's apparently sending a message to someone."

Sending… sending a message… Why did those particular words feel so significant to John?

Apparently, Elizabeth also found them significant, for she was frowning rather deeply at the bodies on the ground beside her.

"What's the message, though?" Lestrade asked. "And who's it for?"

"I'm guessing it's a death sentence," John said. "Three people dead, probably people this person has worked with and I guess the real question is who this person is."

"Ella," Sherlock said sharply, and Elizabeth jumped a little. "Do you still have records of all the stories that came across your desk?"

"Possibly," Elizabeth said slowly. "The things I had no interest in pursuing I often tossed, but I can look."

"See if you can find any connections between these men and other people in this line of work, or someone connected to our first victim."

"Of course," she said, quickly pulling up her email on her phone. "Paper files will be in my things, but I may not have to check those…"

John watched her quickly search on her phone… she was as quick and nimble with technology as Sherlock, though without the air of obvious comfort that Sherlock had. She was forcing herself to be this way, this familiarity, despite how good she was with the technology, it wasn't what she wanted to use. He expected that her personal paper files were vaster, and also more regularly used. He couldn't blame her: he was a bit old-fashioned himself in many ways.

"Nothing here," she said sharply, putting her phone away. "I'll let you know when I've finished checking my files."

"I could search them with you, it would be quicker," Sherlock said.

"No," Elizabeth snapped sharply. "That won't be necessary, Sherlock. You'll have other things to see to."

Sherlock frowned slightly at this outburst, as did John and Lestrade, but none of the men questioned her on her motives or intentions or even the outburst itself. Women were fragile creatures, John had learned, and he imagined that one as clever and intent as Elizabeth was to be all the more carefully handled.

"All right," Sherlock said. "Let me know if you find anything, will you?"

"You'll be the first to know," she said.

John was no expert, but from the look on Sherlock's face, something had just passed between him and Elizabeth that had never before occurred, and it seemed to make Sherlock at least temporarily uneasy.

What made them all a bit more uneasy is that Elizabeth's thorough search (her words) turned up no sort of connection at all between the two murders, the two victim sets, and Sherlock was no closer to solving the case. Lestrade was sending John extra nicotine patches, knowing that Elizabeth's health was probably the last thing on Sherlock's mind. Sherlock was alternating between pacing and playing the violin. When he played, Elizabeth would come upstairs and sit on the floor at his feet, listening. Occasionally she would make some comment about his tone quality or that the placement of his finger was an eighth of an inch off, which according to her, made all the difference in the world, although I couldn't hear it.

Mrs. Hudson was busy as ever trying to make sure all of her residents were eating, which was something that Elizabeth and Sherlock both did only selectively. John found himself wondering if Elizabeth had done this when Sherlock hadn't been around, or if she was eating only when she needed to for Sherlock's benefit, in another attempt to impress him, to be like him.

Mycroft appeared one afternoon, frowning as he saw Elizabeth sitting like a cat at Sherlock's feet, listening to him play the violin. John just shrugged at Mycroft, giving him a good-natured smile as if to say, "What can you do?"

With one swift motion, Mycroft snatched the bow right out of Sherlock's hand rapped Elizabeth sharply on the head with it and said, "Now pay attention because this is important."

John raised his eyebrows. That was very unlike Mycroft.

"What?" Elizabeth growled, rubbing her head, sulking just a little.

Sherlock turned, snatching his bow back from his brother's hand, rapping Mycroft on the head as he had done to Elizabeth.

"Don't hurt Ella," he snapped. "Now what do you want?"

"Two more murders and it's terribly important that you're for these," he said. "Trust me."

"Why, is there more acid?" Elizabeth asked in a snarky tone.

Mycroft frowned at her and said, "No, but I have cause to believe that they're related to the other victims. Trust me, Elizabeth, this is one thing you ought to see."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, but soon they were sitting in a government car, being carried to the site of another double murder. Sherlock and Elizabeth were wearing identical scowls and it was all John could do not to pull out his phone and take a picture of the ridiculous-looking pair, but he knew neither one would appreciate it, so he merely smirked inwardly and imagined himself taking a picture of them and putting it upon on the website, and how much their blog readers would enjoy it.

John hadn't mentioned Elizabeth's presence on the blog yet, he realized as the car pulled into the lot where the murders had taken place. He wondered what he would say about her, how to explain her, when there was still so little he knew about her at that point. Perhaps he would have to interview her at some point more formally, to get a better sense of her and allow her to become a part of their stories for fans.

Sherlock and John got out of the cars first and John could see Mycroft standing in front of what he assumed were the bodies. John walked forward to get a closer look but took a step back when Mycroft moved out of the way to reveal them. It was shocking, disgusting, and horrifying.

"Sherlock? What do you think of that?" John called, but what Sherlock thought was going to have to wait. John turned around and saw Sherlock on the ground next to another form on the ground: Elizabeth had fainted, and Sherlock was kneeling over her, attempting frantically to revive her. John turned to look to Mycroft, who was watching the scene darkly, before moving in to help Sherlock.

John couldn't shake the feeling that Mycroft didn't like Elizabeth very much.


	5. Normalcy

Elizabeth woke up on the bed of 221B Baker Street, Sherlock sitting beside her, eyes gray eyes boring into her like lasers. She would have taken a deep breath, knowing she was about to be bombarded with questions, but he would have noticed and then she would be finished.

"Why did you faint, Ella?" Sherlock said smoothly.

"What?" she muttered, playing confusion as her angle.

"Why did you faint when you saw the bodies?"

"Which bodies?" she moaned, attempting to sit up, but hands pushed her back down onto the bed. John Watson was on her other side, frowning.

"I told you to wait a bit, Sherlock. She's not well."

Not well? What was he talking about?

Ah, those bodies, she realized, remembering seeing the two bodies behind Mycroft, but it was fuzzy from there. She fainted, according to Sherlock. He wanted to know why. He would know her well enough to know that the blood and gore of the dead didn't bother her. But Elizabeth couldn't tell him the truth, couldn't tell him that she had known those bodies in their life, just as she had known the other three. How she had gone out to dinner with them, slipped them notes under park benches, texted them when she had to resort to such obvious and traceable contact.

"Go away, John, I need to talk to Ella alone."

John looked surprised, but then he said, "I'm not leaving. I'm her doctor. I'm providing care. You shouldn't even be in here right now–"

"It's my room!" Sherlock roared.

John blinked, tilting his head to the side a bit as if to shake out the frustration that was clearly building beneath his forced calm demeanor.

"And whose fault is that?" John said softly. "You're the one who insisted we put her in here. I didn't suggest it."

Elizabeth sat up as the two men argued indiscreetly about her health, sleeping quarters, and what was going to be more helpful to her recovery. Elizabeth didn't feel as though she was in recovery. She felt as though she'd been hit upside the head with a hammer.

"Is she up yet?"

"Greg," she muttered instinctively, unable to see Lestrade but recognizing his voice and knowing she wanted him there, somehow, for some reason, to make the others make sense, the very least. "Greg."

The fighting stopped at everyone was looking at her, but Elizabeth didn't care. Lestrade was sitting beside her on the bed, smiling a little, brushing some hair back from her face.

"Hey, you," he said playfully. "Did you just wake up?"

"Yeah," she rasped, trying to sit up more, but finding that even Lestrade didn't want her to do so. "What happened?"

"You fainted," Sherlock said sharply. "You saw the bodies and you fainted. Why did you faint?"

Elizabeth blinked up at him, hoping she looked puzzled, hoping Sherlock would buy that she was still disoriented.

"I guess the real question," Lestrade said measuredly, "is do you remember the bodies?"

Lies or truth? If she lied, Sherlock would know for certain and he would start to suspect. But she couldn't tell the truth. The truth led to too many questions she didn't know how to answer, too many questions she couldn't answer, for fear of giving the wrong answer, giving an answer that would implicate her, that would tell the whole truth.

But what if she just told them everything? Sherlock would be disappointed, yes, and that would hurt. Lestrade would probably be hurt as well. But they could fix it… couldn't they? She'd never seen Sherlock get into a situation he couldn't fix.

But he didn't get himself into this. She did. Yes, he left, he made her desperate, but she's the one who made that ultimate decision. She's the one who actually acted on the desperation.

"I don't know," she said, frowning. "I remember getting out of the car, and Mycroft was there, and it's a bit fuzzy. I'm not sure if what I remember is actually what happened, or if it's some sort of nightmare I have from the mix of the memory and the fear."

Sherlock seemed satisfied, as did Lestrade.

"I feel a good bit better, though," she said slowly. "Tell me what happened so I know what's real."

Lestrade went on, detailing the events, the bodies, who they were, what they looked like, and asked if she would like to see some pictures from the scene, if she felt up to it. Elizabeth hesitated, but she said that yes, she would like to see them, so she looked over the photographs, not at all fazed seeing the corpses the second time.

"Well?" Sherlock demanded. "Why did you faint?"

Elizabeth was faced with that ever-more-common question: Truth or lies? It would be so easy to tell him the truth. But once again, she decided half-truths were best.

"I don't know," she whispered, looking at one of the photos again. "I don't feel anything. I don't have any emotional response. I have no idea."

This, Sherlock did not seem satisfied with. In fact, he was incredibly frustrated, so much so that he stormed out of the room. With a sigh, John followed him out, saying something about a possible concussion and that Sherlock couldn't have expected so much. The pair didn't notice that Greg Lestrade was still sitting on the bed beside Elizabeth, gently petting the hair from her face.

"I was so worried," he said softly. "Fainting on a crime scene… I didn't know what to think. I'm so glad you're getting better. I've been in and out of here every day to check on you. I think Sherlock was about ready to lock me out forever."

Elizabeth frowned.

"How long have I been out?"

"About three days," he sighed. "Elizabeth, I–"

"Don't," she muttered, turning her head toward the opposite wall. "I know what you want to say. Please, let's not go there."

"Elizabeth, please," he said beseechingly. "Will you please just look at me?"

She wanted to look anywhere but at him, but Lestrade cupped her chin with his hand and turned her head back to face him again.

"Please don't," she whimpered.

"Why haven't you called me since you've been here?" he whispered. "I wanted to give you your time, Elizabeth, give you space, let you catch up with Sherlock. I know that's important to you. But I've been going crazy. It's like you hardly even look at me anymore, much less pay me any attention. I've missed you."

She'd missed him too, of course, but more than ever she needed to separate from him. He would get hurt, and he shouldn't even be attached to her in the first place. He had a wife. There was no excuse for Elizabeth dragging him down with her.

"Greg," she began, ready to start actively pushing him away, but before the words could find their way out of her mouth, his mouth was on hers, kissing her eagerly, passionately… and yet tenderly and gently and with all of the feeling and emotion she had been missing since she had last been with him. She made a single half-hearted attempt to pull away before returning the kiss with vigor.

Elizabeth melted against his mouth, reminded of all the reasons she had been charmed into her affair with him in the first place. Their lips worked together, exploring, eager, needy…

"Ugh," said Sherlock, and Elizabeth and Lestrade yanked apart, surprised, quite forgetting that anyone else could walk in. "If you two must do that, I'd rather it wasn't in my bed."

Both kissing parties were sufficiently ashamed of their behavior and Sherlock turned to the living area, to John, and said, "You see, John, she's fine. I've just caught them snogging."

Elizabeth could feel the blush building in her cheeks, wondering why Lestrade didn't remove his hand from hers. But then, she found herself not wanting him to, anyway, so perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing.

John convinced Sherlock to leave Elizabeth more or less alone while she was "recovering", which was her new word for "deciding what to do," but she would never tell them this distinction.

It wasn't too long until she was up and walking around again, and the very next night Elizabeth found herself wandering around London by foot, still not entirely sure how she had gotten out of the apartment, still less sure how she had wound up at Lestrade's door. He seemed as surprised ot see her as she was to be there, but he let her in quickly, taking her coat, leading her in to the kitchen where he was just getting ready to make a pot of tea. To the untrained eye, they could have been any old friends just catching up after a holiday season apart, but they could both feel the tension underneath every little move, every gesture, every word, every tiny shift in expression. She was about halfway through her tea when he took the cup from her hand, set it aside, and pressed his lips to hers as he had at Baker Street.

Elizabeth didn't hold back this time, instantly melting into the kiss, allowing him to lean into her, to let his fingertips run down from her cheek to her collarbone, then lower, staying above the fabric of her shirt as he cupped her breasts. She sighed a little into the kiss, already anticipating the sensations she knew would come if she let them, the things she had long since associated with his tender touch.

"Greg," she whispered against his lips, "I don't know if we should do this."

She usually said something of that sort, not to be coy, simply thinking that perhaps someday he and his wife would stop fighting, start working things out, get back together, but Lestrade always took this moment of moral high-ground as an opportunity to nibble on her neck and her resolve to be a better person this time was gone. She allowed him to lead her to bed, to strip her down, to worship her body. It was always a more one-sided affair than an equal endeavor with them, partly because of Elizabeth's guilt, partly because of her devotion to Sherlock, but this time, this time was even more so because of her fear. She knew she was being weak, that her weakness could kill him, but at the same time, she hadn't realized just how much she'd missed his touch until her skin burned at the feel of his mouth, the sensation of his skin and the friction of their bodies.

When they were curled up skin on skin his bed, Lestrade gently caressing her neck, Elizabeth burying her face in his chest, she felt the sinking feeling of dread filling the pit of her stomach. She shouldn't have even gone to his place, much less his bed. She shouldn't have let him kiss her again, much less make love to her. And she shouldn't have enjoyed it so much, but she always did. And the worst part was, she could feel the insatiable desire for more of him already building in her core and she knew she would go back again, or that they would have a second round, and probably both.

What Lestrade didn't know, what nobody knew, was Elizabeth's sexual history. She thought at one point that Mycroft would have suspected, but then his later remarks in her presence made her realize that he had no idea.

For when they had been about nineteen, Sherlock and Elizabeth had slept together.

An experiment, Sherlock had called it. He had said she was the only person he trusted to not see it as anything other than that, to know what it was like, to have the experience and be done with it. It had seemed like a logical idea at the time, and the nineteen-year-old Elizabeth would have worshiped the ground Sherlock Holmes walked on, if he would have let her. It was the next best thing.

It had been less than romantic. It had been like a chemistry experiment, with Sherlock doing research, writing up a to-do list, and even writing up a summary of the experience and his findings at the end, but Elizabeth managed to make him destroy the write-up. She could just imagine what her parents would think if such a thing found its way onto the internet someday. It was almost worse than dirty pictures.

"I didn't use your name," Sherlock had said. "Nobody will know who the subject was."

"Yes, they will," Elizabeth had argued frantically. "Sherlock, who else in the whole of the school would sleep with you for something like this?"

But they exchanged assurances that it would never happen again. And it didn't. As Elizabeth, she grew to realize that she didn't want it to. Sherlock was like her deity, the most brilliant star in the sky, to pin all her faith and hopes and dreams and worship on, but she didn't love him in the ways a lover ought to, and he certainly wasn't capable of loving her in those ways. And Lestrade… Lestrade happened.

She could almost still taste the first kiss they had shared, beside the filling cabinet in his office… Elizabeth couldn't even remember anymore what the case was they had been working on, but their hands had brushed over a file they were looking for and she could feel jolts of electricity in the touch, and before she realized what was happening, his lips were pressed gently to hers.

Elizabeth thought for a while that it was a one-off, that nothing was going to happen to them, but that they had been caught up in the moment. He was having marital problems. She was single and right in front of him. But it didn't take long for him to kiss her again… and again… and again… and…

She told herself then that it was just kissing. They liked the thrill of maybe being caught, the thrill of the comfort of another human being. That was all. It wouldn't be, couldn't be more.

And then he asked her to dinner.

And she said yes.

And it was only a matter of days before she was going to his flat, and then it was hardly any time at all before she was sharing his bed. Sherlock knew, of course, and teased her, but Elizabeth had hardly felt so alive in all her time knowing Sherlock as she did in Lestrade's arms. And although she told herself time and time again that it would end, that she would stop this affair, that she would tell Lestrade to work things out with his wife, that she would stop being so wanton and foolish, she never found it in her to actually act on these silent, unspoken promises to herself.

Similarly, Elizabeth knew as she kissed Lestrade's chest that she would be back, that she was going to continue the affair all over again, despite what she told herself, despite knowing better.

"So much blood," he whispered. She frowned. "At the crime scene, I mean. It's hard to imagine that just two people can hold that much blood in them."

"Please, let's not talk crime scenes in bed," she whispered, closing her eyes to try to think of anything else, kissing his chest again.

He continued to stroke her hair thoughtfully.

"We used to do," he pointed out. "All the time, you used to love talking about them."

"I'm not exactly as I used to be, Greg," she sighed, kissing his neck. "I did change a bit."

More than a bit, she told herself as her lips met his in another deep, passionate kiss. Many things about her, about who she was and what she did had changed, but it was better if Lestrade didn't know, better to keep it quiet… for at least as long as she could.

"All right," he moaned as she pulled away from his lips. "No talking about crime scenes. Any other requests, love?"

"Yeah," she whispered, biting down gently on his ear. "Don't call me love."

He let out a breathy laugh that turned into a moan as she raked her nails down his back. That was truly all it took to initiate round two.

The following morning, Elizabeth made her way back to 221 Baker Street, fully aware of the implications of her actions, feeling sated but guilty, and knowing she would go back again within a week for more. Sherlock frowned as she came in.

"How is Lestrade?"

"Tired," she said with a smirk, and Sherlock let out a huff of laughter. At least one of them could find the whole thing amusing. John came down for breakfast, yawning and stretching.

"Morning," he said. Then he frowned at Elizabeth. "Have you already been out?"

"She stayed out last night, John," Sherlock said, turning to a newspaper. "Those are the same clothes she wore yesterday, remember?"

John scratched his head, clearly not remembering, and Elizabeth smiled a little, amused. She wondered how they had gotten on without her.

"Who kept you company before you met John?" she asked Sherlock, curling up at his feet with a book she'd grabbed from the table.

"My skull," he said.

She frowned. His skull? What did that mean?

Elizabeth looked around the room and spotted a human skull. Ah, so that was what he meant. A bit morbid, but it was Sherlock, after all.

Mrs. Hudson brought in breakfast, with toast and sausages and tea. Sherlock ate where he was. John took the chair across from Sherlock. Elizabeth sat at Sherlock's feet, despite the fact that Mrs. Hudson pointed out that there was a perfectly good chair beside him. Elizabeth sipped her tea, washing down the toast and sausages and she sighed. Despite the presence of John, she could almost make herself believe that things were back to the way they were. She could get used to the changes. But in the back of her mind, she knew the tranquility would be short lived, at best.


	6. The Game is Afoot

John watched Sherlock and Elizabeth grow closer, noticing that Sherlock wasn't talking with her about the case anymore, at least not in front of John. That's not to say he didn't talk about the case with John, just not in front of Elizabeth. John decided it was time he did some sleuthing of his own.

As soon as the pair left for dinner one night, John snuck down to 221C for some searching through files.

There was nothing extraordinary, he found. Much of what he was able to find were papers on public health code violations in restaurants and things of that sort. With a sigh, John realized he was going to have to be a lot more investigative if he wanted to figure out exactly what was going on.

He retreated back to his room, thinking over the facts. Elizabeth had been out of Sherlock's life for a while, then managed to find him. Mycroft was suspicious of her for some reason, and it seemed to have to do with the murders Moriarty was responsible for. And… and Elizabeth kept getting those texts, texts from someone who wasn't Sherlock and wasn't Lestrade and she seemed to dread them but never hesitated to check them…

No, John didn't know what it all meant, how it all fit together. He thought he might have found something in her papers, especially after she so ardently refused to allow Sherlock to go through them. With a sigh, John settled down in the kitchen, paying no attention to the fingers in acid that Sherlock had in bags all over the kitchen in various types of conditions. Mrs. Hudson brought him tea and he continued to puzzle over the things that nagged at him about Elizabeth. But despite how much he tried, he couldn't wrap his brain around it.

And the bell rang, which caused John to jump because he forgot they had gotten it fixed. He rushed to get the door so that Mrs. Hudson didn't have to. It was Lestrade, but in street clothes. John frowned.

"Uh, did you want Sherlock?" John said slowly. "He's out."

"Uh, no," Lestrade said nervously. "It's nothing to do with the case. But, uh, is Elizabeth in?"

"No, they're out together," John said, without realizing how it sounded. Lestrade winced and John said, "I mean they–"

"I know," Lestrade said quickly. "As much as I tell myself there's no point being jealous of Sherlock, it's hard not to be a bit. There's a way she looks at him that she'll never look at me."

John had half a mind to ask if Lestrade's wife ever looked at him that way, either, but he decided it wouldn't be tactful, so he didn't. He understood what Lestrade meant about Elizabeth and how she looked at Sherlock. It wasn't love, it was reverence. There was a similarity between the two things, of course, but that thin line was one that people like Sherlock and Elizabeth were very much aware of.

There was a sound of laughter and Elizabeth and Sherlock came bounding up the stairs, chatting about something. When Sherlock's eyes fell on Lestrade, he frowned slightly and the laughter and conversation puttered out.

"Oh!" Elizabeth said, seeing Lestrade for the first time. "I'm sorry, did we have plans or something?"

"Uh, no," Lestrade said, standing quickly. "No, we didn't. I just... I just wanted to see you."

"Oh," she said, frowning slightly. "Well, I needed to show Sherlock something, have him look into something for a moment in my papers, but I'll be right back and then maybe we could... Oh, I don't know, have you had dinner?"

"No," Lestrade said quickly.

"Great," Elizabeth said, tossing Sherlock's scarf (which she had been wearing), onto the table beside John. "Only be a minute!"

She and Sherlock hurried downstairs and John frowned to himself. He had just wasted hours sifting through her papers to no avail, and there she was showing something to Sherlock after all. He thought nothing was related, but maybe it didn't have anything to do with the case.

"She's really something," Lestrade said softly, looking over at the scarf. "I should have gone after her when... Well, last time. It was stupid of me."

"Why didn't you?" John asked.

Lestrade shook his head.

"I thought she was gone because of me. She'd never said anything about it, but I'd convinced myself that she was upset that I hadn't divorced my wife, that I hadn't made an effort to marry her. Most women would be," he sighed. "I don't know what I would have done if she _had_ asked, honestly. Even now I'm half the time thinking I can still work things out with my wife, even though here I am, playing the fool again for Elizabeth."

John watched Lestrade, frowning. He was being a bit of a fool, but then, a lot of men were fools for pretty girls. It was hard for John to think of Elizabeth as a pretty girl, though, despite how pretty she was. She was Sherlock's, well, he wasn't sure what word to assign her. She was sort of like an accepted groupie.

"I wonder what she's showing him," Lestrade said anxiously. "They're taking quite a while."

It hadn't been long at all, actually, John noted, but Lestrade was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation. What was it about her?

But yes, he was most certainly playing the fool.

It was really only five minutes that had lapsed between Elizabeth and Sherlock heading downstairs and Elizabeth and Sherlock coming upstairs, but the way Lestrade was acting it might have been several incredibly painful hours.

"All right, are you ready to go out, then?" she said with a charming smile.

John had to admit, she was quite a master of that charming smile, and for a moment he could hardly blame Lestrade for his weakness, but the puppy-dog eyes Lestrade was giving her made John feel a bit sick, so the feeling of understanding subsided quickly.

Only seconds after the door closed behind the pair of them, Sherlock turned to John.

"John, I need your help."

John blinked.

"I'm sorry, what?" he said.

Sherlock sighed.

"Ella's keeping things from me. Ella has _never_ kept things from me. I'm very concerned, and I think it may have something to do with the case."

John nodded, waiting for Sherlock to continue, but he didn't. He merely picked up the scarf and started winding and unwinding it in his hands as he paced the length of the flat.

"What did you need my help with?" John said finally.

Sherlock blinked at him.

"Did I not say?" Sherlock said with a frown. "I need you to follow her for me, keep an eye on her. She knows me too well, she knows how to keep her secrets from me, it seems. Have you noticed anything yet?"

"Well, there are the texts," John said slowly.

"What texts?" Sherlock snapped. "Be more specific."

"Well, she keeps getting these texts," John explained, "and they're not from you and they're not from Lestrade and she always checks them right away, but she seems... uneasy about them."

Sherlock nodded and frowned. He didn't say whether he'd noticed them or what he thought about them, just nodded and frowned. Sometimes it was enough to drive a person mad, the tiny amount of what Sherlock was thinking that he shared with even John.

"Her papers were less than illuminating," John muttered.

Sherlock smiled a little at him.

"So you did take the opportunity to go through her things, then. Good. I was worried you'd pass it up because of moral reasons. No, there wasn't anything much that I could tell, either, but I did see some gaps, which suggests that she got rid of some things when I'd suggested previously to help her look through her files. She's purged them."

"You're saying she's gone so far as getting rid of files to hid something from you?" John said, baffled. "What would she do, burn them?"

"Not Ella's style," Sherlock said thoughtfully, pacing the room frantically. "She saves everything. I just can't think of where she would put it."

"Wherever she'd think you wouldn't look, I'd expect," John replied before he'd really even thought about it. Sherlock stopped pacing and turned to blink at him.

"John, that's brilliant," he said eagerly. "She would expect me to look in her things. She might even expect me to look in my things, but do you know where she would never think either of us would look?"

"No, where?" John said, confused.

"_Your_ things," Sherlock said quickly, rushing upstairs to John's room, John trailing close behind.

"Sherlock, I think I would know if someone had hid something in my room," John said irritably. "I mean, they are _my_ things, you know. I know if they've been messed with!"

Sherlock began looking around the room carefully, hand up to tell John not to say or touch anything. John bit back his sigh of annoyance and settled for rolling his eyes. Sherlock wasn't going to find whatever he was looking for in John's things because there was no way she could have been in his room, much less hide something there, without John noticing. Nonetheless, Sherlock's eyes scanned the room expectantly, sure he was going to find something.

"She's certainly been here," Sherlock whispered. "I can smell her."

John frowned, sniffing the air. How could he possibly _smell_ her? She didn't wear perfume that he could tell. What did she even _smell_ like?

Sherlock walked over toward John's desk and looked down at it thoughtfully.

"This book," Sherlock said, pointing to a book in the middle of the stack. "How many pages would you say it is?"

"_The Lord of the Rings_?" John asked, confused. "I don't know, maybe a thousand or so."

"This book has about a thousand and two hundred, from the look of it," Sherlock muttered. "Which would be fine, except this edition is a thousand and eight pages long. Someone's hiding papers in this book. I'm assuming that's not your doing?"

John blinked. He'd been meaning to finish it, of course, but hadn't touched it in months.

"Um, no, that's not me," he admitted, and at once Sherlock slipped the book out of the stack, held it from the ends, and shook out several dozen folded bits of paper.

"Well, well, well," Sherlock said, half proud, half disappointed as he scooped up the papers. "Very good, Ella, but not good enough. Let's take a look at what she's been keeping from us, shall we, John?"

When they were sure they got all of the pages from the book they went downstairs and spread them out on the table, reading them over. Sherlock's frown grew deeper with each page he'd read, and John knew why as he looked over them as well. Each page pertained in some way to one of the recent victims they'd been dealing with in what they called 'the case'. Elizabeth found a way to 'find' evidence to get them off, or used them as a source to bring someone else down. Even Lucas Karlsen, the very first victim, had been associated with her work somehow. She'd known every single one of them.

"Elizabeth Coppens," Sherlock muttered, "you dirty little liar. Do you know what this means, John?"

"It... it means she's keeping things about the case from you," John said slowly. "It means that she was in some way related to all of the victims, that she at least stumbled across a lot of cases tying them all together. It means... I'm sorry, Sherlock, I don't really know _what_ it means."

Sherlock growled, crumbling the bit of paper he had in his hand angrily as he hissed, "It means that Ella is somehow associated with Moriarty. Mycroft was right, as much as I hate to admit it. Ella didn't deduce where I was alone. She had help, and it wasn't from Mycroft."

"I'm so sorry," said a soft, small voice from the door, and John looked up to see Elizabeth standing there, tears in her eyes and her whole body shaking. "I... I'm... Sherlock, please, I didn't know what else to do!"

"Sit down," John demanded, leading her to a chair. She looked ready to collapse again as she clutched her phone manically in her hands.

"Give me your phone," Sherlock demanded, and it wasn't hard for him to pry it out of her hands. It wasn't password protected, apparently, or Sherlock just knew what the password must be, because he was in her texts moments later. He read aloud her latest text which said, "Fly home, little one. Someone's gone snooping. -M"

John blinked as Elizabeth flinched at the initial.

"Moriarty?" John said. "You're getting those texts from Moriarty?"

"I never meant for any of this to happen," Elizabeth whispered to her hands. "I was getting so desperate and Mycroft just made things worse. Lucas approached me and at first I just thought he was interested in my work, but he said he knew about you, and knew someone who could help me find you. It just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up."

"You're smarter than that, Elizabeth," Sherlock said harshly. "You knew what he was the moment you made the deal. You knew what would be expected of you. I'm not worth-"

"Yes you are!" she cried, tears in her eyes and John felt very taken aback, sitting with them.

"Hang on a moment," John said, "why was he helping you? What's he after?"

"I don't know but he just keeps texting me, like he's reminding me he's not done with me yet," she whispered, horrified. "I just know he's going to do something horrible to someone I care about but-"

"Where's Lestrade?" Sherlock snapped sharply.

John felt his stomach drop as Elizabeth's eyes widened and her phone went off. Sherlock looked down at the screen and shook his head.

"Where did you see him last?" Sherlock said firmly, getting up and grabbing his coat.

"His flat," she said, standing as well, but Sherlock pushed her back down into the chair.

"No," he said like a father admonishing a poorly behaved child. "John and I will go. You stay here. Keep your phone, text us if he says anything else. Don't follow us and don't you dare leave this room, do you understand me Elizabeth?"

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but Sherlock said, "Elizabeth Coppens, you're staying here and that's final, do you understand me?"

All she managed to whisper was "I'm so sorry, Sherlock," through her tears before Sherlock gave a satisfied nod, kissed her on the cheek, and took off.

John stopped before following him, clapped his hand on her shoulder and said, "Don't worry. Everything's going to turn out right. You'll see."

He could hear her sobbing to herself as he followed Sherlock down onto the street where they hailed a taxi and went straight to Lestrade's flat.

They rang the bell, but there was no answer. Sherlock texted Lestrade, but there was no answer. Finally, Sherlock tried the door and found it open. The two of them exchanged looks and headed upstairs, searching for any sign of where Lestrade might have been taken. There were half-drank glasses of wine in the kitchen. Lestrade's tie and Elizabeth's coat were both tossed haphazardly on the floor of the bedroom.

"This must be where she got the text," Sherlock whispered. "Tell me, John, if you were with a girl who got a text and hurried away in the midst of snogging, what would you do?"

"I'd have a drink, probably," John said with a shrug. He'd never been in that situation, but it seemed the logical thing to do.

"Yes," Sherlock said softly. "Except the wine he'd poured earlier is still barely touched, probably hasn't been since they headed into the bedroom. Someone got to him first, I suspect. Which means they were waiting for her to leave, either outside or inside..."

"You think they got inside his apartment?" John asked, incredulous.

"Why not?" Sherlock snapped. "We've seen it before."

"Yes, and that was an acrobat working for a Chinese smuggling gang," John reminded him.

"And they were working for Moriarty, I'm sure," Sherlock reminded him. "In any case, with the number and variety of criminals at his disposal, I'm sure they've got all sorts of ways to abduct a seemingly safe person, even a detective inspector."

Something about what Sherlock had just said grated at John's mind, but he couldn't think of what it was, why it was important. Instead, he looked around the room, trying to think of truly anything that might be useful. There was nothing. No clues. Nothing at all.

And then Sherlock's phone went off.

"Text," John said nervously. "Elizabeth?"

Sherlock opened the text quickly, his eyes widening as he read it.

"No," he said softly, "but it's from her phone."

He held the phone out for John to see:

_You shouldn't leave important things unprotected. - M_

The two men shared an uneasy look. Moriarty had Elizabeth, although where he had her was still a mystery. And he had Lestrade too, except...

"This was what he wanted the whole time," Sherlock seethed. "Getting her back in my life, letting us get close again... Kidnapping Lestrade was just a game to distract my attention!"

Sherlock had already begun pacing when there was another text message and Sherlock froze instantly, whipping the phone up to his face to read it carefully, and he turned to John, who frowned.

"What is it?" John asked. "Is she all right?"

"I don't know," Sherlock whispered. "It's an address. Why would he give me the address he's taken her too if he's going to kill her?"

"He's playing a game," John said, realizing what Sherlock was getting at. "He wants to make you think you have a chance to save her and then kill her anyway, he wants to see you see her dying or dead."

"There's just one flaw in his plan," Sherlock spat. "She's not going to die. Come on, John. The game is afoot!"


	7. So Much For Pretending

Elizabeth was digging her nails into the hard wood floor, thinking. Jim would contact Sherlock, she knew it. It was why he took her phone, to make sure that Sherlock knew that she had no power.

She was sitting on the floor of an unfamiliar building beside Lestrade, whose gun and phone had been taken from him. His gun was actually being pointed at Elizabeth's head by one of Moriarty's associates, a man she hadn't met before by the name of Boris. She really hated the name Boris, even more because there was something about Boris that inexplicably made her want to cry.

Jim had told them they could talk, but so far, Greg hadn't said a word. He was watching Elizabeth as though he'd never seen her before, confused and hurt, and it made her insides twist uncomfortably and also made her want to cry.

Elizabeth didn't want to cry, so she didn't look at Boris and his gun or Greg and his pained expression and instead looked down at the hardwood floor her feet were resting on, digging her nails in to feel something other than tears she refused to let fall. She wasn't going to do that, not there, not in that moment.

She should have known that Greg wasn't going to let the hurt silence between them last long.

"I don't understand," he said softly, his voice shaking with so many emotions she didn't want to think about. "Elizabeth, please, I don't understand."

"I'm sorry," was all she could say, still staring at the floor, digging in her nails just a little bit deeper.

"Elizabeth, please..."

She just shook her head, fighting the tears. No. He wasn't going to make her cry in front of Moriarty. He didn't have that right. He and Sherlock, they had driven her to madness and desperation. They had driven her to this.

Except she knew that the line she had crossed was her fault, not theirs. Letting herself believe that Moriarty wouldn't hurt her when he'd never even fed her as much as a lie suggesting such a thing... She was stupid.

"Elizabeth, please look at me," Greg whispered, and she couldn't help but look up into his searching, confused eyes, instantly wanting to look at the ground once more. But she didn't. He said, "What is all this about? Is it because of your parents? Is this a ransom situation? I need to know what we're dealing with."

"Not ransom," Elizabeth snorted. "Jim doesn't deal with such petty, base, uninspired crimes. My parents are dead, anyway."

"Jim?" Greg said, dumbfounded. "You're on a first name basis with Moriarty?"

She looked down at the floor again, digging her nails into a different spot, a fresh spot where she could feel the soft wood filling the space between her nails and the skin behind them. She used to like the feeling of that space being filled with things, used to find it comforting.

It wasn't working, though.

"Elizabeth..."

"Just stop, Greg," she muttered, trying not to think about the gun Boris was pointing at her head, trying not to think of what she'd done.

He was quiet, at least for a moment, and that had to count for something, but it didn't. She didn't really want him to be quiet, she realized, but she'd wanted him to tell her that everything would be all right, to lie and say it wasn't her fault, and Greg couldn't and wouldn't do that, so she didn't want him to tell her the things she already knew were true. It was painful enough to know the truth of them in her heart.

Moriarty was smirking down at her, and Elizabeth refused to look up at him, to give him the benefit of seeing her face and the pain in her eyes as he taunted her. She should have known better. She had known better, but she'd deemed it worth the risk.

"Look at me, darling," he ordered, and she continued to look down, digging her fingernails into the wood a bit more tightly.

Her chin was tipped up with the toe of his shoe and Elizabeth glared up at his brown eyes. Now that she was looking at him, she wouldn't be the first to look away.

"That's better," he said smugly. "He's on his way."

"Who is?" Greg demanded. "Sherlock? How do you know he's coming here?"

"GPS," Elizabeth whispered. "He knows you have my phone so he's tracking you here."

"Very good, kitten," Moriarty said with a laugh. "I imagine he'll be twice as fast, knowing you're here."

Elizabeth was sure he was right, but she wouldn't say so out loud. Sherlock had always taken her safety very seriously.

If he was smart, he would have alerted Mycroft, gotten the government to come down on Moriarty. He knew where he was. But Moriarty seemed to be an expert on finding things that made Sherlock be stupid.

Sherlock wouldn't risk the government raiding when Elizabeth was there, probably in immediate danger, and Moriarty knew it as well as she did.

Taking her nails out of the wood of the floor, Elizabeth began tapping her nails on the floor rhythmically, knowing it was only a matter of time. She wasn't going to look anxious. She was going to seem calm.

It didn't matter that Moriarty knew she was terrified and counting every second with a twist of fear in her stomach. She wouldn't show it. Greg certainly didn't need to know.

"Can I have some tea, at the very least?" Elizabeth said cheekily. "Or even some water? I'm rather thirsty, Jim."

"You're so very right, darling, how inhospitable of me," Moriarty drawled, getting a glass of water for her, which he personally held at her mouth while she drank, then offering to get one for Greg, who spat at him. "Don't they teach you manners at Scotland Yard?" he teased.

"Leave it," Elizabeth said, feeling a headache coming on. If Sherlock was going to be a fool about things, he may as well get it over with, she thought.

Just as she thought that, there was a knock on the door. Moriarty set the glass on a table and went to the door, swinging it open to reveal Sherlock and John, who were both looking very out-of-breath and solemn.

"You have something of mine, I believe," Sherlock said firmly, eyes scanning the situation of the room, seeing Greg and Elizabeth as they sat on the floor, seeing the gun trained on Elizabeth, even glancing over the marks her nails had left in the wooden floorboards. He frowned, looking back up at Moriarty.

"You left her sitting around," Moriarty said, smirking. "That's fair game, Sherlock."

"Not when she's in John's bedroom," Sherlock snarled. "What do you want? Surely it's not ransom, although you've got quite a good ransom target sitting right on your floor."

Elizabeth shivered, not wanting to think of what her parents would have said if they'd been contacted for ransom. They'd always told her that she was bound to have something terrible happen to her, attached to Sherlock as she was. Bad things happen to people like that, they'd told her, and worse to the people around them.

What would they say if they could see her now?

"Oh, the look on your face is a pretty good start," Moriarty said, letting them walk into the small room. "If you hadn't gotten here so fast, I would have guessed that you'd run the whole way."

Elizabeth saw Sherlock stick his hand in his pocket, could see him moving it...

Dialing. He was dialing.

But who?

"Something tells me you didn't kidnap Lestrade and Ella just to see me out of breath," Sherlock said in a clear voice as he looked around the room once more. "So what are you really after, Moriarty?"

"Oh, not at all," Moriarty said, so excited at getting to enact whatever his plan was that he didn't seem to have noticed that Sherlock was giving his words to someone.

Who would it be, Elizabeth wondered? Someone who thought like Sherlock, obviously. Someone who would understand what Sherlock was trying to do and who would be able to get help where they needed it...

No, it couldn't really be Mycroft?

But then, Mycroft did want very badly to get his claws into Moriarty and put him away for good. He'd been causing such a very lot of trouble for the nation. And he certainly wouldn't want the scandalous incident that would occur if it got out that the daughter of two of the greatest writers in the modern world had been kidnapped, along with a member of Scotland Yard.

"I want to watch you watch her suffer," Moriarty said happily. "It seems that I found the hostage that makes you lose your calm. Even Dr. John Watson didn't manage that with bombs strapped to him." Then he turned to the man holding the gun. "Boris," he said calmly, gesturing to Elizabeth, "shoot her in the leg."

She gritted her teeth, ignoring Sherlock's yells of protest, Johns cries of shock, Lestrade's pleading... She focused only on the sheer pain of the bullet ripping into her calf, lodging in the floor when it came out the other side. She focused on the sight of her blood pooling around the hole in her pant leg.

"What is this?" she hissed at Moriarty. "Going to shoot me full of bullets until there's one left and then kill me?"

"Now would I be so predictable?" he said with a smirk. "I've got other plans for the last bullet. Other leg, Boris."

Elizabeth bit her lip, wondering where he would put the fifth bullet. She only had four limbs.

The bullet went to the same spot of her left leg, and she decided it must be the shock of the injury that kept her from feeling it properly, from crying out in pain. It was a good thing, really. She didn't want to show that sort of weakness in front of Lestrade and Sherlock. It was bad enough that her weakness had gotten them all into this mess.

"Anything to say, kitten?" Moriarty teased. "No expression at all? How very unlike you."

Elizabeth said nothing, glaring up at him, not wanting to give the satisfaction of even flinching.

Sherlock was frantic. Elizabeth could feel the anxious energy coming off him in waves. He didn't seem to believe that Moriarty wasn't going to kill her. Maybe Elizabeth didn't believe either.

After all, what would the fifth bullet be for? Killing her and then using the sixth bullet for whatever else he was doing, that would make sense. Perhaps it was for John. Perhaps he was going to kill John, then Sherlock, then leave Elizabeth to bleed to death with Greg helpless but to sit there and watch her die.

Her mind was reeling and she couldn't stand the waiting. She looked up at Sherlock, who was looking anywhere but at the pools of blood forming around her legs. It wasn't comfortably, Elizabeth decided, sitting in her own blood. She shook her head, looking down at her legs. She couldn't think of what to do, how to make it stop. Elizabeth Coppens couldn't think of a moment in her life when she'd felt more helpless.

"The arm now, Boris," Jim's voice said sweetly, and she closed her eyes feeling the tears forming behind her eyelids, feeling the bullet penetrate her arm and go through, more blood gushing out. She wasn't going to let him see her tears. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. It was bad enough that he'd gotten any reaction out of her at all.

But the shock was wearing off slightly, and the adrenaline, and the pain was starting to come from her wounds. The throbbing, aching gun wounds that were seeping blood all over the floor were finally a part of her, and she didn't like it.

Sherlock was probably horrified. But there was nothing he could do, and whatever help he'd called in wouldn't be soon enough, she knew, not if they were going to show up at all.

"And the other arm," Jim said, and her heart was pounding as Boris shot her other arm, blood pouring out all around her, and she knew they were about to learn where the fifth and sixth bullets were going. If not to kill her... Or if to kill her...?

Elizabeth could tell that tears were finally streaming down her face, so she didn't bother with squeezing her eyes shut, and instead she looked up at Sherlock, surprised to find that he, too, was tearing up, if not exactly crying.

She couldn't even bring herself to look at Greg. She didn't want to see what his face looked like, probably contorted with all sorts of emotions she didn't want to think about him having. She supposed, as she sat there, bleeding, that she really did love him, not that knowing it did much good. Not anymore.

"The chest now, Boris," Jim said happily, and Elizabeth looked up at Boris as the gun was aimed expertly at her chest.

If the fifth bullet was to kill her, what was the sixth for?

She would probably never know.

She heard the gun go off but she didn't feel the bullet go through her chest. The strange thing was she could still see what was going on around her, although the room was a bit blurry and she knew she was moments away from passing out. Lestrade was pushing against her, she could feel that, but she couldn't hear anything. She looked at Boris, eyes focusing on following his gun as she felt her warm blood seeping out onto her shirt, felt the life leaving her body.

The gun was pointing at something, someone else.

The gun was pointing at... at...

There wasn't much strength left in her body but Elizabeth found herself pushing her body across the small room, pushing herself out of her position, the one everyone must have been sure was her dying position, to knock him out of the way.

The sixth bullet would not find its intended target. The world moved slowly as the gun went off and Elizabeth made contact with the body she'd flung herself at.

She'd never believed in the concept of having life flash before one's eyes in the moment of dying, but she see all her years with Sherlock flashing before hers in that moment.

Meeting him so many years ago, following him around, carrying his books for him, their one night of clinical sex for his research, case after impossible case that he solved... Elizabeth could see the time without him, the desperate searching for him, the working at the end of Moriarty's strings in the desperate hope of finding Sherlock.

It had been her greatest mistake and she was paying for it a thousand times over. She could see the bullet right there, she could feel the body she'd knocked into tumbling to the ground, hands trying to move her, but too late.

The door was being burst open, whoever Sherlock had texted had arrived, but it was too late, all too late. The bullet was entering her skull in a moment, and the last thing she heard was Sherlock crying out her name as the world went black.


	8. Epilogue

**A/N: This epilogue is dedicated to **_**Old Ping Hai**_**, who just followed this story in time for it to be ending. I'm glad you discovered it, anyway. And Natalie (I know you're reading this), I hope this makes you cry. Please, everybody, check out some of my other work and I'd love it if you went to or iTunes and bought my novella, **_**Those We Trust**_**.**

** -C**

Sherlock wasn't looking at the headstone. He just sat there, back pressed against a nearby tree, watching Lestrade stare emptily at the headstone and John stood to the side awkwardly, watching it all.

As a doctor, he knew that she would have died anyway, but as a human being he couldn't help but think that the shot that killed her was intended for him, and she knew that. She'd dove at him with the last of her strength, pushing John out of the way with no time or energy to dodge it herself, even with Sherlock desperately trying to move her out of the way.

But she would have died anyway.

Mycroft came in just as the bullet hit her, killing her instantly as it penetrated her brain. Or rather, Mycroft's operatives.

He never did anything himself.

It would have been too late to save Elizabeth Coppens, though. The shot to the chest might have missed her heart, but there was enough internal damage that she would have been dead before they could have gotten her to a hospital.

Moriarty snuck out the fire escape while Boris tried to fight his way through all of Mycroft's men. He got away, despite their best efforts.

He got most of what he wanted, though. He got to see Sherlock crying over Elizabeth's body, if only for just a moment, with the added bonus of a hysterical Lestrade.

Ah, Lestrade. That had been a heart-wrenching sight to say the least. The sight of Lestrade hugging Elizabeth's bloody corpse to his chest, kissing each wound and getting her blood all over his lips. John had never seen anything so horribly depressing in all his life, including his time in Afghanistan. He had known, of course, that something was going on between them, but he had never realized just how much Elizabeth obviously meant to Lestrade.

They had to pry him off of her so they could bag her body and take it to St. Bart's for the autopsy that really wasn't necessary except as a formality. Molly did the autopsy, and even she couldn't stop crying.

"I really hated her," she confessed to John afterward, "but nobody deserves that. Nobody."

John had never seen Sherlock so despondent. Mrs. Hudson couldn't make him eat. Mycroft couldn't goad him into anger. Nothing and no one could stir him, not even the taunts of Anderson and Sally.

"Sherlock, you have to eat and sleep still," John tried to tell him. "You've not stopped being human just because-"

But John couldn't finish that sentence. He didn't want to see that dead look in Sherlock's gray eyes again.

The funeral had been a solemn affair. A large number of important society people were there to pay their respects to the last of the Coppens line, even though she never lived up to the grand expectations of society. Sherlock had been there, of course, and even Mycroft paid an appearance, although whether as a long-time friend/acquaintance or as a member of the society party, it was really impossible to tell. Lestrade snuck in on his patrol time.

"If I took the time off I would have to explain it to my wife, and she would never understand," he told John sadly.

Ironically, John thought as they looked at the gravestone, Elizabeth ended up being the thing that brought Lestrade and his wife back together, in the end. Things had been so bad between them that it took seeing the person John was pretty sure Lestrade actually loved dying to realize that he had to make things right with the woman he did have.

John stepped away, over toward the tree off a few rows from her gravestone and was surprised when Mycroft stepped up beside him, looking over at Sherlock and Lestrade.

"You know, the most extraordinary thing about this, is there was nothing extraordinary about her," Mycroft said softly.

"I beg your pardon?" John said, frowning as he looked up at Mycroft.

"The thing is that she was barely above average intelligence," he continued, "hardly above average charm, and moderately above average in attractiveness. The only thing she had any really substantial amount of was wealth, but you know as well as I do that no amount of money in the world can attract Sherlock's attention unless it was involved in a case and Detective Inspector Lestrade was not looking into divorcing his wife for the Coppens fortune. Her parents' wills are airtight. He wouldn't get a dime. So what was it about her?"

John wanted to say that it wasn't the time or place to be discussing such a thing, but he had to admit to himself that Mycroft did have a point. Elizabeth Coopens, friendly and lovely girl that she was, was certainly not anything spectacular or even beyond the ordinary. She was at best as pretty as Lestrade's wife and a smidge more intelligent than John. She'd been training herself all of her life to be like Sherlock, and she still had never fully pulled it off.

Lestrade, that could be explained easily enough. He fell in love. Men had fallen in love with women of all sorts without logic or explanation since the beginning of time, and John reasoned that he could have done a lot worse. But Sherlock... that was the part that was stumping both John and Mycroft. He wasn't a sentimental man so their youth should mean little to him. He didn't need or want her money. She was good company, yes, but she seemed to be more important than even John, and she offered nothing that the two men didn't have between them.

"You know, it's funny," Lestrade said as John walked him back out to his car. "You dream all your life of the way you want things to turn out. Find a girl, fall in love, settle down, get the right job, have kids that look just like your wife, and then work until you've got grandchildren and spend the rest of your life loving your wife and children and grandchildren the best you know how. But... but something always goes wrong, doesn't it? Life never does work out like that."

John nodded slightly, more out of sympathy than agreement.

"So you and your wife are getting back together, then?" John asked delicately.

"Yes," Lestrade said, laughing bitterly through his tears. "It's funny, she and I were fighting before anything ever happened with Elizabeth, but once I fell in love I could barely stand being around my wife. It got worse when my wife got suspicious, and Elizabeth was always feeling guilty. But now that Elizabeth is gone, I mean really gone... Well, I can't stand being alone, even if I have to be with my wife. It's crazy, but I guess that's men for you."

When Lestrade was gone John went back to Elizabeth's headstone where Sherlock was standing alone, still staring at it with an expressionless face. If John hadn't known any better, though, he would have thought that Sherlock had been crying, but the red-rimmed eyes were probably just a trick of the light, or an effect of the wind.

"She's really gone," Sherlock said eventually. "Leaving her, that was different. She was supposed to be safe. Now... now..."

"Now no one can hurt her ever again," John said gently, words he'd used a hundred times with families of dead soldiers.

Sherlock didn't respond, just staring blankly at the gravestone. John waited for some sort of sign that Sherlock was coming to terms with what had happened, but there was no sign. After about three long minutes Sherlock turned on his heel and marched away from the stone with his usual measured step and John just watched his retreating figure.

Sherlock wasn't wearing his scarf, John realized, the one Elizabeth would borrow all the time without warning. John shook his head slightly and looked back at the stone one last time.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Then he followed Sherlock back to the cab, feeling as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

**A/N: And that's that! BUT I'm also making plans for a prequel, chronicling the life Sherlock/Elizabeth/Lestrade had together before Sherlock left her. I hope you all check it out. Still haven't decided on a name, but it will be marked as a Lestrade story. :D**

** -C**


End file.
